The Iowa Review
Volume 22
Issue 3 Fall
Article 3
1992
Kidding in the Family Room: Literature and
America's Psychological Class System
Carol Bly
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Bly, Carol. "Kidding in the Family Room: Literature and America's Psychological Class System." The Iowa Review 22.3 (1992): 18-42.
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Kidding in the Family Room: Literature and
America's Psychological Class System Carol Bly
NO ONE WANTS
American
TO HEAR
a stage-development theory for the
class system. The very phrase "stage-development"
offends half
let alone applying it to a national family secret ?the American
the world,
a
can and should
class system. We
don't welcome
theory that says adults
we
to hear any
change;
keenly don't want
theory that says whole enclaves of
can
adults
change.
our
at expressions
like "personality
literary people nearly curl
lips
even
we
next
breath
may argue that what's needed
change,"
though in the
? some sort
if "education"
for the ghetto
is "education." Well,
and what
at least?is what's
of education,
needed for the mentally
idle, suffocating,
in
American
the
room?
bored middle-class
There may be
family
sprawled
We
use
such a canny and humane kind of education already designed,
already in
a
in the world:
if you can
there may already be such
stunning intervention,
use the
in things cultural,
"intervention"
that if our family
expression
room TV addict could experience it he or shewould leaveoff glaring atBill
new quarterback;
and dreamless conversations,
Cowher's
he or she would
laced with
abandon
kidding.
forever
the desultory
He or she would
become,
a serious human
willfully,
Everyone,
don't work
being.
or in groups,
individually
out very nicely for other
in privileged,
the half-educated
have noticed
change
class American
wants
that
has some psychological
want
I
One
people.
psychological
can
people is their idea that nothing
or discultivated
or
middle
totally uneducated
room.
course
in the family
Oh! ?of
the ghetto
educated
sprawled
person and the ghetto enclave must be educated so they can change?but
there is some
the American middle-class
person is off-limits.
Apparently
of
this
of
about
the
idea
middle-class
per
type
thing terrifying
re-educating
or discultivated
or half-cultivated
uneducated
middle-class
Although
not
are the butt of all novelists:
is
I
there
know of who
any writer
people
son.
wants
cynical
the working-class
middle
non-imaginative
protagonist
to rise and join the sneering, kidding,
often non-voting,
non-thinking,
class. Non-intellectual,
are the villains
people
in all literatures. We
all hate
the
18
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and non-civic
non-reflective
or her own
family
Square bloodless.
St. Louis
Of
concerns.
all their
stantly miss
the skating
stereotypical
the historical
person who can't care for anything beyond his
are what
They
keep life in Arnold Bennett's
to come up for air in
They try
George Orwell.
crimes
moment.
the one
is that they con
are like the torturer's horse and
I dislike most
They
and the bridge officer or helmsman
of the expensive
"Mus?e des Beaux Arts." Whatever
is happen
of moment
For unreflective
of their business.
life is simply a
people
children
ship in Auden's
none
ing it is
the most passive or least self-confident make
sequence of incidents of which
more voluble of them can make anecdotes, but no con
nothing much. The
nections.
They don't devise, consciously,
principles by which
they decide
to live or not live.
case of doubt
are
In
unconscious.
They
psychologically
comes
the most ubiquitous,
least criti
something
up) they commit
(when
cized social offense. They kid. If you live among them you must "take some
kidding."
The above
remarks have
the sound of nasty diatribe,
but
Iwant
to talk
about kidders in the family room theway physicians talk about wounds
are
to be
to describe
happen
pustulant. Doctors
willing
repulsive
conditions
because they mean to think through a diagnosis
and then look
to
curatives anyone has thought up. They mean
around for what
help.
for his or her insen
Dickens
despised the insensitive, uneducated bourgeois
which
sitivity,
mation.
but Dickens
human
nature
saying,
"I hate
colleagues
for them:
transfor
any theories for psychological
in
like that. Ifwe rail against something
one enclave of human
we tend to avoid
beings,
didn't
know
are still rather
Authors
or
against
the way that class background
operates." And
against any certain class background^ we
pontificate
are
they
lacking in love of the universe.
Such piety would be all very well
the world's
ills. It isn't. Literature
if literature were
should our
lose respect
the only medicine
is not a transformative
for
most
discipline:
most
as a
it
it
it
write
and
who
who
teach
people
people
regard
descriptive
us how the world
It
tells
the
with
that how the
is,
discipline.
implication
is is how it ever has been and ever shall be ?an endless mix of
world
appal
set among the small props and
human behavior
ling and gorgeous
major
scene
a
a
nature. Literature
in
of
is
all
poets
drops
loving field,
way?nearly
and novelists
and playwrights
and short story writers
love such particulars
of the universe as they remember from childhood.
most of their
They love
19
or
love affairs. They remember, with
interest, the vari
amusing
poignant
ous
of their life. They are quite tolerant. They are tolerant, in
workplaces
addition to practising
the literary philosophy
that the more things change
same. Bede described
the more
they stay the
things that happen in the
Such aWeltanschauung
1990s.
does not produce
change
agents.
It is terribly important to realize that ifwe follow only the intellectual
our
we will miss
serious chances to change the
style of
literary habitat
world. We will be, in effect, children skating while
the white
legs of Icarus
sea. Here is a small
disappear into the
example: everyone supposes they love
thework ofWendell Berry, but it is the political scientists and philoso
phers and ecologists
who
have
spotted
the brilliance
of Berry's
essay "Solv
ing for Pattern" (in The Gift of Good Land). In this small essay, Berry
teaches away
you can reorganize
your whole
life. You
can use the essay the
way Socrates used works he got hold of (if Plato reports him rightly). But
of Berry's do literary people like best? Those along the coast
for simpler, better ways of life, detailed and
of literary habit ?nostalgia
nature
in rural places, and so forth.
of
moving
descriptions
which
works
It is all right not to be changers of people ifpeople aredoing no harm and
?
if they are happy inwhat utilitarians
call "fecund happiness"
that is, hap
more
than
which
breeds
rather
breeds
which
piness
happiness
happiness
the bottle, you are not
If you are an alcoholic, happy with
less happiness.
in a "fecund" happiness: quite the reverse, it will take ever more
engaged
to
to past levels of kicks, and what's more,
drink
drinking
bring you up
lessen any happiness you yourself can get from other
considerably
in life, and it will
of
lessen the happiness, without
exception,
on the other hand, includes
around you. "Fecund happiness,"
everybody
as
connections
such things
reflection and making
cognitive
philosophical
itself will
activities
between
particular
information
and likely meanings
for that information
(the kind of work Piaget described in early stage-development theory).
People who do philosophical reflection become happier themore they do
them happier. When
they connect informa
to
subjects
meaningful
generalizations
they enable
from aesthetic enjoyers of the par
and the rest of us to move
it. They make people
tion about particular
themselves
around
ticular (this day, this faintmoonlight,
thismusic) to political and ethical
to be that all creatures have leisure and income
(it ought
a
can be
to
in place where
the faint moonlight
cleanly
spend time
hours and hours).
creatures
20
enough
seen for
We
know
there is such a thing as cultural abuse. I have made up the phrase
to us all
the years of
throughout
?especially
and Bush administrations:
educational
and cultural
disfunding
its facts are known
for it, but
the Reagan
first for the poor, then for us all. Ifwe are willing,
just for the
in their family rooms as peo
of this essay, to think of Americans
programs
purposes
ple living in a psychological habitat, and to think of the traditional rich, in
be caught dead using the term "family
their living rooms (they wouldn't
as
see that the
habitat, we might
living in another psychological
room")
room
not a
family
joker is
type of person who will always be the same, but
that he or she might be someone at a certain level of psychological
and cul
tural growth.
Further growth?however
firmly nature programmed
poten
tialgrowth into the head?is being psychologicallyblockedjust as ghetto kids
adults are measurably
cog
kept from abstract conversations with
as
the
of
from
all
slowed
two,
age
just
nitively
puppies, kept
loving
by
touch, either in the litter, or by human beings, become measurably more
as
stupid and unsocialized
dogs than do other puppies, just
eighteen-year
who
are
olds are intentionally bullied by theMarine drill instructor until they give
during boot camp.
these three cases of psychological,
which
is to say cultural, blocking?
It is that in each of the three cases the subject of
is (to the Utilitarian
the experiment
leaves off a pleasurable activity which
as
is,
"fecund," ?that
above, a pleasure which
explained
philosophers)
up spontaneous
decision-making
is the invariable among
What
leads to further pleasure in the subject and in the creatures around the sub
does not breed life
ject. Instead, the subject is reduced to activity which
giving happiness. The cognitively blocked childwill grow up unable to do
principled thinking.When the privileged make their haphazard remarks
about how
that people,
"what
the ghetto
really needs
mean
they
to learn and enjoy
right
be safer as more Ameri
is education,"
a
I believe
have
inhabitants,
ghetto
course everyone will
of
principled
thinking?and
cans
It is something of a deterrent
practice principled
thinking.
including
to murder.
The puppy will grow up into a dog thatmindlessly bites instead of distin
between
who
deserves
a bite and who
if you
doesn't.
(By the way,
seen it
on
in
remarks
Plato's
The
Book
the
II,
recently,
Republic,
Imention
it because most peo
training of dogs is genial, elegant thinking.
we then miss the
in
of
Plato
and
ple's reading
happens, frenetically,
college,
charm of it.) And finally, any reading of boot camp memoirs
shows us that
guishing
haven't
21
making
someone
who
kills is the primary purpose of the ser
mindlessly
reverse
it is also the
of cultural stage-development:
it
geant's bullying. But
is taking a reflective person
Nazi ?someone
who
and changing him or her into something
takes orders. Someone
fearfully and promptly
course
obeys orders is of
dangerous.
of soldiers: every study
cultivation
men) who
predominantly
combination with mindless
of
pleasure. They
is an effect
There
incidental
like a
who
to the dis
seen suggests that men
it is
(for
in
of
de-sensitization
the conscience
I have
undergo
obedience
to orders must
trade in the pleasure
of being
a
change
free-standing
their sources
individual
guided by his own will for the pleasure of being in a herd of likeminded
folk (one's platoon) and in believing that theparticularherdone is in is thebest.
to your
and my herd's superiority
Such pleasures
(herd companionship
are the most
improvident
pleasures there are! They de-intellectualize
herd)
to
since whenever
"I" and "my" must
the subject,
be kept opposed
are
sense
"others" and "theirs," holy connections
stopped. All
necessarily
seem
too
"I"
For it if isn't,
is blocked.
of empathy
and "my" might
ger
mane
case I
in which
and "theirs,"
might
and my ability to hurt those others when
to "others"
superiority,
lose my
ordered
feelings of
to do so.
to call reverse
Ifwe are willing
cultural abuse, then we
stage-development
as lack of humanities
can raise an ethical hue against such discultivation
or
For the sake of clar
education,
anything else that blocks contemplation.
ity,
a short,
rough list: junk culture, violent
lies, the noise of rock music which
TV,
stupidity of
to scramble cogni
the endless
is known
politicans'
to
one's
and
kid
the
tion,
way through life as if life
encouragement
simply
were a kind of recreation period sometimes
interrupted by income-earning
are all influences that block earnest talk and
thinking. As with other kinds
of abuse, we can identify its victims by the stories they tell of their experi
ence and the symptoms
they show. As with
them as people who
could be doing better
other victims,
and who
we
deserve
can look at
better
luck.
to the
battered wives
refuse offers of help and keep returning
batterer, many kidders in the family room may well resist school literary
can be
Such parents now have a lot of power:
and social programs.
they
their charac
great killjoys to their children's cultural life. They don't want
Just as many
ters or their behaviors
experts.
22
And
examined,
traditional
not
to mention
literary-minded
deplored, by any big-shot
at
repulsion
people shiver with
the idea that the family room joker is not just a necessary, pathetic element
on the contrary,
someone
of a naturally hierarchial
society but is,
experi
or
not
if
intervened with,
encing cultural abuse and who will,
bring up his
In fact, who
in the
her children to the same psychological
limitations.
does awriter
world
the constant
about
think
she is to suggest
joker?good-natured,
that something
cynical, coarse,
should be done
unpretentious,
unpolitical fellow that he is? If shedoesn't like the type,why not put a few
of his number
stories or essays or poems and then shut up and
if he is so bad, don't tell us about him at all. Someone
into short
leave him alone. Or
asked Hemingway
why he didn't write novels about ordinary middle-class
Americans:
his answer was, Why
should Iwrite about people with broken
not a
to say the least. He was,
was
change agent,
legs? Hemingway
no matter
as
ignorant people nearly always are
classically,
psychologically
own
a
how marvelous
fields,
they may be in their
typologist.
To a typologist, the family kidder is theway he is and alwayswill be. He
or Statesperson.
artist, philosopher,
Literary people may
a
critic
that
ascerbic
who
jeers atmost of what he
remarkably
equably agree
or she reads
a
are more or less
that
likely is blocked author: they
allowing
to
turns
resentment.
the
It's
intellectual
unfulfilled
temperament
potential
is not
a blocked
a nice,
like C. G. Jung's idea that any gift unused will
solid idea. It ismuch
turn to poison in the unconscious.
If we allow that such a psychological
operates
theory of poisoning-the-personality-through-blocking-potential
for the English professor we had better allow that itworks for the family
room
cynic
as well.
one says, "It looks as if old What's
crea
he hasn't published
anything
one forces oneself to say, "In thousands of cir
One
has quite different feelings when
It hates everything
he reviews because
tive himself,"
from when
cumstances
I never thought of before, there is a kind of cultural advantage
or
this is a question of justice and I shall have
disadvantage
being practised:
to
to it, if I am amember
of my beloved but shaky democracy."
It
respond
to
in the normal zone
I
admitting
of things. feel tolerant of
psychological theory
not
to
to
in the nor
credence
theories
wanting
give
people
psychological
mal zone. I spent years like that, never guessing
that therapeutic
skills can
move one from a
to a
and
of
level
low
simple
willpower
complex and high
level. Nobody
had told me about this life-enhancing
aspect of "inter
is
actional
skills,"
and since social psychologists
write
such dreadful Latinate
23
no one
their books.
jargon
lightly reads through
I am not annoyed that
people avoid psychological
altogether
applications
but it is enraging
that the same people who
reject any hopeful use of psy
to
fatalistic psycho
deterministic,
chology will avidly agree
hope-denying,
logical ideas.They willingly hear out a theory provided it is full of doom:
a
sigh, "O yes, I suppose that would be so." Or more preten
I can see how thatwould be operative,
all right!" Here is
tiously: "Right!
an
a
of
of
such
doom:
example
theory
they say with
turn into empires;
they acquire the ugly
abroad paid for by taxation
for
empire?wars
democracies
Enviable
of
markings
which only the rich find loopholes, delapidation of the infra
structure
because
elsewhere,
uncultivated
tioned
the rich have
voted money
dividends
such as into shareholders'
for repair to go
or into the? for
at least
?exhilarating
foreign wars,
or the
sector
in empires
Empires
private
people,
above.
ever more
violent
television
if it is recent America.
tastes of common
circuses
people
if it's late Rome,
ever more
men
devise
violent
thus debauch
Empires
so that our
species-wide
hunger
the
for
justice andmeaningful challenges is instead redirected by dis
traction
for its own
sake and repetitive
jolts of violent
stimuli.
is a deterministic
Its im
stage-development
theory of government.
our
from going all the
that we can't choose to keep
democracy
plication
a
to
sound to it. Ifwe
has
therefore
authoritative,
way
empire
depressing,
room
are in a living
the word "factors"
and America,
talking about Rome
That
enters the conversation.
secret of sorts:
Here
is a psychological
quickly
or
a group of
start
that
when
talking about factors,
people
phenomena
our
the
the
that
is
"factor in,"
ego inside us,
part
energetic
willpower,
game for anything hopeful,
begins to sag, the way gardeners'
spirits sag
sleet furs the unripe fruit. The hopeful will retires from the conversa
once will has left, the remain
to be
tion because it doesn't want
depressed;
can
we
is all
hear. A perfect parallel is a church.
ing part of the personality
when
and the litany,
the strong, processing
choir, which knows the music,
unsure
one
voices of
hears is the disparate and
and can sing, has passed, all
the responses.
When
leaders leave, the followers make
the congregation.
Once
24
is this follower part of the per
In the case of the human mind,
then, what
once the ebullient
leader (will) is absent?
sonality
It is our passive nature, generally glad enough to take over the way the
is usually
of any organization
surliest, stupidest vice-president
weakest,
more
to take over should the president
die or leave. The
than willing
uncreative
inside us, just like the uncreative
elements of society,
elements
to live
want a day or two in the sun. Human
beings may want
creatively,
"
or
uncreative
fol
also
fun
Now
the
but they
have
living uncreatively.
some
lower" aspect of us happens to be partial to depressing,
hopeless,
more
its
the
what
arguments
scientific-sounding
theory ?the
particular
are in their follower mode
briskly agree that indeed you
People who
as
are damned
get worse
they go along.
right that all governments
as George Orwell warned us in 1984 is his or
One marking
of a follower,
for history. That means
that the follower
her poor memory
aspect inside
am
of
for history.
each of us has a poor memory
sick
(I
awfully
people quite
better.
seriously talking about being respectful of theChild within them:we need
to recognize
the Follower
us and make
within
sure it isn't
doing
too much
of the talking!)
We
are
follower
supposing
mode,
anecdotes
impressed
that everyone
to agree to
quick
themselves
they
if you document
in the room,
however,
is in his or her
and short on
pessimistic
generalizations
can
to bear.
therefore tend to be
bring
They
your
pessimistic
the gradual
determinism
by citing
of the medieval
some
Ger
history
they don't know ?say,
change
manic tribes from crude, communal gangs of tough guys and their women
to communal
gangs of tough guys and their women who have awarded
to the soldiery. An ominous fine point: itwas one
notable privilege
thing
to
return
in
for
when privilege went
soldiers
brave,
living
large-scale kill
ing. It is the job of soldiers, killing large numbers of people bravely, and if
are
To award them is like giving a house and
good workers.
they do it they
to
But soon, in less than hundreds of
Alvin
fence
York.
Sergeant
picket
as had
These
years, Saxon soldiery inherited privilege,
royalty in Rome.
us
most
of
soldiers became the thane class, which
know of only
privileged
through theThaneship of Cawdor which Macbeth coveted and killed for.
it all sounds, this bad news! But it has a second
implica
?
feel intellectually
sound aswe mutter,
"O yes
inherited bless
we
an ethical mistake because it feels comfort
ings and evils!"
might make
How
?
tion
obvious
ifwe
25
let the concept of inherited evil
able enough in the conversation: we might
our
to
seem indeed to be a part of
over
evils
If
social
class system.
flow
fate
then we get to go on taking our class system asmerely one aspect of human
fate. We
get
continuum
to say that human
beings
are frozen wherever
we
are on the
of psychological
blocked at one end,
and psycho
sophistication
(from culturally
us
to
at the
let
free-hearted
say,
logically
other). "You
can't get people to grow past the class values they are brought up to" is one
of the most common, most hopeless remarks made by educated people. It is
follower
quite common,
quite respectable,
thinking.
Let's look at those class values we are brought up to. Some
things really
we know. One
international,
probably interspacial for all
is that when
"So and so is sadly limited, of
you say to nearly anybody,
or
a
her class background,"
the listener invariably makes
course, by his
in question,
the one no one ought
mental picture of the class background
to get stuck in, such as lower middle-class
social life. We
the
imagine
two guys from next door before the TV. The wife's gone up
swiller with
are intercultural,
new
to fix up a tray of high-salt crackers and a pretty good-sounding
spread
to
wants
not
and
that may
be homemade,
spend all week working
(so who
some
the guys just
then half of Sunday afternoon
inventing
spread when
wolf it down whatever, hey forget it). The kid, poor naif, has just said for
a
the first and the last time, "Dad, I have just written
poem!" Dad, friendly
awide
it over! Listen, you guys,
Pass
shout:
"No
kidding!
gives
enough,
one of you got a kid's a
which
poet!" The poem chinks into the family cul
ture coffers along with
the Steelers'
taking in the satisfactory pass between
passer and a wide receiver a second later.
news: genial, mindless Dad, kidding in the
The bad, uniformly
accepted
was born to the cultural-intensity
level atwhich he now lives
family room,
a
and he will
type of his class. Anti-stage-development
stay there. He is
are. "One
is past people are what
they
sure can't
tells the
the beginning
group
therapand
change,"
thing you
nature."
But
"is
human
with
group
group
therapists
aplomb,
therapist
or
from less sophisticated
know
that adults can be moved
psychological
more
to
It
is
levels.
cultural levels
why group
sophisticated
psychological
people
claim
that once
childhood
are
are group
practitioners,
stage-development
therapists. They
therapists
in
not
can't believe
frozen,
inherited,
genetic,
unchange
They
typologists.
scientists often do. For one thing, if what you
able types. But non-social
26
are iswhat
you are and it can't be changed,
else and not makes changes. One
something
ing ideas as, what
if American
culture
types? Not just the young
psychological
but
dreadful
middle-class types?
tion,
in our follower mode
What's
more,
then you're free to think about
needn't entertain such unnerv
creates,
in itself,
ghetto male
certain
dreadful
crazed by disciviliza
we enjoy eternal,
unchangeable
a
are fun.
out
test:
kick
of taking the Briggs-Meyer
People get
I
is half-charmed,
their analytical
instincts half-abstracted.
truths. They
their vanity
seen silkier smiles than those on the faces of
people whose whole
test
is
social
the
with
acquaintance
Briggs-Meyer
psychology
they just
are a
took and got deliriously
that
they
interpreted. They cheerfully accept
have never
emerge
at all.
type. I have never heard anyone
itwhat's-it
that they are awhat's-it what'stype
it-what's
it-what's-it-what's-it
howling,
denying
what's
I am not
listening
sure
from
a
news offered as
thoughtful
why bad
?principle gets such
same
a
sort
of principle,
such
the
variety of people, when
appliedwhere it gives hope, rouses the killjoy in people. "Thatwill never
is the classic response.
I have great respect for social-psychological
so
to
I
of
for why people
think
ideas,
try
social-psychological
explanations
but not to a stage
agree to a stage-development
theory of governments
we have to watch
of
Now
character.
like a hawk lest
theory
development
our own favorite theories. I have never
we
apply
forgotten
inappropriately
we treat
nutritionist
Adelle Davis
how the
suggested
cranky pre-teenage
work"
as if nutrition
could mitigate
one's grief over
calcium,
a sexist
am
in
I
the same mis
cruelty
society. Perhaps
making
take. Perhaps I am looking for a social-psychological
theory for something
a very
reason that
ismerely habituation.
which
Perhaps
simple
people turn
down hopeful applications
of stage-development
theory is that most news
on television and in American
other than the New York Times
newspapers
girls with
nightly
to women
theories much.
or isn't news
at all. Neither
papers nor television discuss
it
is
Therefore,
possible that people whose minds feed daily
on newspapers
and television do not recognize
information
is either bad news
and principally
as real unless it is
pessimistic.
itmust be some kind of
If it is not pessimistic,
a
we quite
draw our
hype, and faced with
theory,
hopeful
automatically
?
selves up and say: "I will not be played for a fool." Aloud we say: "Oh
that will
never work!"
27
as
to
as that. Or
theory is
hope-filled
Perhaps resistance
simple
perhaps
"That will never work"
the word
should give a
"work" in the expression
?
to a less
theories do need work
first to see if they
key
pleasant explanation:
and second, if they are to improve
apply in all like situations;
to devise and carry out programs
use
life, they call for us to work
making
us
out
of both levels of
of them. A deterministic,
pessimistic
theory lets
consistently
new
threaten the ego so
starting
projects doesn't
point:
to get
evil. Tiresome
much as having to undo some up-to-now
prevailing
tiresome ifwe must gear up to
roused up for any cause, it is all the more
correct some evil our generation
and our parents' generation used to be con
work.
Another
tent with.
It is hard to confess,
about middle
"My attitude of hopelessness
and now after thirty years I must
habits is wrong
class psychological
in
investment
change it." And that's only thirty years' emotional
culturally
is some
children.
the
and
No
wonder
there
abusing
family kidder, spouse,
a
to the women's
movement!
How
could one enjoy
thing of male backlash
women
to having been coarse and wrong
for 35,000
about
admitting
use 35,000 years under the assumption
that European white males
years? (I
at least since the Lascaux and Altamira
have been wrong
about women
caves: recent opinion
be 35,000 rather
suggests the cave paintings might
than the previously
thought
I should like deliberately
15,000 years old.)
to use innovation
in farming as an
problems
to
to
of
rethink
how people respond
what
having
example
they thought
as a group,
were givens. Farmers,
still tend to be somewhat
psychologi
time around pop
that is, since they haven't spent much
cally unconscious:
nor done much research into social work
theory, they
psych conversations
It is something
like the frank way
don't hide their psychological
responses.
don't know
theories of
tell their dreams who
any psychological
people
?
some
of the theories, they fix up their dreams
dreaming. After they learn
ones not to tell at all. Farmers are not at all
and they learn to spot which
what
you
could
only just begun,
countryside.
call psychological
like thin waters
People
therefore
social-climbers.
Group
a very
high dam,
speak their minds without
over
has
psychology
to flow into the
adjusting
what
they say to sound politically (which is to say, psychologically) correct.
that they till with equip
still respond to scientists' suggestions
or
or that
not
that they till differently,
tilled with before,
they have
one of the four
till less thoroughly
than they have before, with
Farmers
ment
they
responses
28
here:
1. That's
tried and it didn't work
been
(even though
it has in fact not
tried to anyone's knowledge).
2. That wouldn't
work.
been
3.
Iwill
wait
and watch
while
someone
else tries it.
to
ask questions right now about aspects that sound doubtful
answer
new
I
if
them
and
the
will
me,
proc
give
they
satisfactorily
on 20 acres where
ess a try on a
am not
I
scale,
maybe
pilot-sized
anyhow.
doing anything much
Iwill
4.
If you find yourself thinking that a less educated person might use
or
1
No.
No. 2 (negative assumption without
Response
Response
(denial)
to
more
information
and unwillingness
much
information
before
gather
are
on
a
the
then
kind
of
cultural stage
you
making
assumption,
trying
are
a
You
certain
that
of
kind
education
would
saying
development
theory.
free Farmers No.
2 from their style of receiving new ideas. But if
the answers to whatever
you decide that Farmer No. 4, the one wanting
came to his or her mind, was born that
able to
questions
way?innately
in the presence of new data without
wait
and wise
feeling threatened,
1 and No.
to ask for more
enough
theory?a
theory
then you are subscribing
explanation,
is set the way plant life is set.
that character
to
type
In type
theory, one kind of person is simply that kind of person.
In type theory then, the kidding
father in the family room was born a
kidder. He will always kid around. Perhaps it is realistic and sensible and
true: maybe kidder s are kidder s. One lone fact makes me shudder: the kid
or
der, like the earnest philosopher
Statesperson, has a child.
just-minded
a
As we heard, the kidder's child said, "Dad, I have written
poem." There
is no one who
doesn't
think that ifDad
takes the poem
seriously
and treats
the child respectfully the child will grow up with different values than if
Dad crows to his pals, kidding, "Hey you guys! Hey, which of you guys
a poem, huh?"
got a kid's written
to argue for Farmer No.
Iwant
a
4's not being born wise but
having had
or
or
mentor
teacher
experience (e.g. good
parents) which
psychological
to
4
want
I
forth
No.
for
the
kid's
argue
response.
brought
eleven-year-old
ability to go on participating in art and in thinking, which will presumably
result
in a life with
enacts
an intervention
both
reflection
from
and earnestness
the class background
someone
in it, provided
a
and foreground
(e.g.
29
a mentor,
teacher,
good
agrees
that
interventions
society?males
or a
in the ghetto,
fire the weapons
they quickly
should we
way,
in the parents). Everyone
to
for those regarded as a danger
esteem
for example, with
such low self
that
so
some
In
less
frantic
frequently carry.
they
change
are needed
of heart
not also
regard the kidder
society?
The kidder
discourages
sloth. Abstract
language
in the family room as a
danger
to
earnest creativity.
He models
philosophical
such as justice is little used at his dinner table. He
models fear of being foolish to his child?worse,
it is foolish to be creative.
life that could be spent
hours and hours of human
wasting
on issues of soul or govern
or government,
about
soul
working
learning
in others. That's uncul
and honoring work on soul or government
ment,
He models
life throughout
up to a bleak place
tivated middle-class
being
brought
the ages. The kid brought up in it is
of psychological
along the continuum
privilege to psychological blocking.
A century ago no one thought of all the nice points of class definition
A century from now I think that it
talk of so confidently.
that sociologists
will be thought ridiculous thatwe have not laidout lists ofwhat influences
people to be full-hearted and free-spirited and daring-minded. Itwill be
all the more
appalling
thought
that we had
scholars will know
from 2092,
looking backward
the social work
conversational
skills and
because
the group dynamics
savvy about how to make people use them instead of
to one another brutally as so many of us do. Scholars will be taken
talking
at (or never even heard
aback that humanities-educated
people have balked
of),
laying out
?what
?what
?
what
lists of:
psychological
influences make
people
passive
psychological
influences make
people
low-spirited
influences make
people hyperobedient
psychological
influences make people likely to take
psychological
and random stimuli rather
their pleasure in distraction
?what
than in imaginative
mental
life.
that is, we know
More negative
studies have been done than positive:
that children jeered at early tend to develop weak enough egos so that they
into new ideas. We
know that children who
will not venture confidently
30
receive
hours'
fewer
modeling
parents) will
and mentorship
from
their
immediate
go up through the recognized
grownups
cognitive
(usually
more time with mentors
more
than
than
children
who
stages
spend
slowly
a
can
we
human
with juvenile peers. Logically,
then,
being's psy
upgrade
acuity.
chological
Most people are certain we
can't override
nature's
law that the majority
the best goals ofthat species. We
to achieve
of any species are too mediocre
a
as ifwe were
our
are
to look at
sensible
species in detached way,
proud
are
we
to grant,
"indifferent
that
like
honest,
Hamlet,
people willing
we are
in
We
feel
humble
earth."
'twixt
heaven
and
impressively
crawling
to
subject
being animals and like animals,
but one
that sounds sensible and consistent,
so
we overcome
much
and build up
public
laws that they never again are taken as "all
natural
laws. This
fact of the human
opinion
against
is a notion
brain
is that
certain natural
right" by anyone. An example
corners of the world,
some
but
of this is slavery. People still have slaves in
no one! ?
to have slaves. No
not think it is all
do
one?absolutely
right
they
now write benignantly
should
about how slaves and their masters
would
nature: animals
Slavery is very practical in
can. Ants do it. It is no
longer all right in human
they
practice itwhenever
life for big things as amatter of course to reach a paw across in order to kill
two or three smaller things nearby who happen to annoy one. Large people
kill women
who haven't
the
their enabling musculature
do. Males with
behave,
the way
St. Paul did.
muscle to fight them off. But it is no longer thought all right.
that we
stop thinking it is all right that the disculti
his or her children
and discouraging
vated person go on being discultivated
as
seriousness
well. Even if the discultivated
from moral
person is in the
Therefore
I propose
of the species, let us
the previously
majority,
accepted mediocre majority
start saying aloud: it is not all right. Besides, we know how to change such
households,
just as the liberals of England knew how to keep mine-owners
to it.
from using child labor once they set their minds
Let us say we want
and mean to get, for the kidder's poetical child, the
are in luck,
of the species. We
and ethical expectations
best intellectual
since social scientists of our time have already identified serious influences
of two
types:
a) Bad Psychological
Influences.
Hannah
Arendt,
Alice Miller,
and most
recently, Robert Jay Lifton and EricMarkusen in The Genocida!Mentality
31
have
identified
six or seven distinct
influences which
1) make people insen
to
sitive so that they can commit atrocities,
and 2) incite them addictively
on
follow
leaders ?to
others
without
getting
high
obeying
question.
one of Hitler's
minions
close
Albert
who
such
addic
Speer,
experienced
us
at
Bruno
tells
first
hand
about
what
Bettelheim
and Hannah
tion,
of: having a power crush, so to speak, on a leader is a for
Arendt warned
to crowd up close. One wants
to get
midable pleasure. One wants
slap-up
so that his power
he
against the person,
palpably flows into you. When
into the room, you feel like an iron filing which has lain inert wait
amagnet:
now that the magnet
for
sweeps over, the iron jerks a little,
ing
to the magnet.
Sometimes Ameri
shivers, and then literally flies magically
as
can males mistake
such power crushes
Power crushes
homosexuality.
comes
to do with
have nothing
homosexuality;
gest that such crushes tend to fragment
there are in fact studies
that sug
crushes have to
all sexuality. Power
a vacuum in
combinations
of
weak
self-esteem,
specific
early ethi
to
cal thinking,
and the corresponding
hunger of the leader
lap up his fol
lowers' souls. It is helpful to notice how these forces have their effect not
do with
zone of
in the moderate
of course,
but, scaled down,
only upon Nazis
see them
a football team, among the coach
in
American
life.We
operating
see them
in creative-writing
and his players. We
classes, where
operating
the teacher drains ego-strengh
from the students. Per
enough
frequently
are so common
we don't notice them:
such
forces
that
psychological
haps
out
that fish neither question nor contemplate
the
Wittgenstein
pointed
seawater.
salinity of
Influences. Several influences make people spend
b) Good Psychological
less time in followship
stages in favor of the riskier but more exhilarating
in
the nineteenth
and in our time,
century,
lifestyle called,
leadership,
to
health,"
centered,"
open
"being
"good
"being
psychological
a
am
so
is
The jargon
but I
dog's breakfast,
change," ?all wonderful!
grateful
being
this work
that
done
that undoes
cultural
abuse has been
done
and is
that I forgive
People whose
the practitioners.
of life is received with
contemplation
respect from an early
age (around eighteen months) find such contemplation pleasant and they
are disposed to spend their lives being philosophical people. One might
who find the only
argue that Socrates was in a very small minority?those
one.
a
is
That
life worth
factual, not a normative
living the examined
32
remark.
If all children
speaking?if
observations
were
treated
is, symbolically
respectfully?that
their fathers and mothers
received their poems and their early
serious interest, and did not turn them into jokes, jeers,
with
room ?most
of the children
the ubiquitous
kidding of the family
to tell Roman
to live rather
Priests
used
lives.
choose
might
philosophical
me the child until he is seven and Iwill guarantee you a
Catholics,
just give
or even
the priest meant,
which
Catholic?by
among
other
things,
someone who
will be fearful of and obedient to uniformed authority, in addition to hav
ing a spooky penchant for feeling guilty.
The priests were right. Seven years of age is very old in the
a
ing of human being. If you gave the kid in the family room,
amentor who would
an hour or two with
say things like,
to
Have
Web!
where
Charlotte's
you
got
reading
Templeton
Trust
me with
the rotten
child's personality
will
I handle
egg:
be guaranteed
this
cultural
shap
once aweek,
"I saw you're
the Rat says,
stuff all the time?" ?that
a safehouse
for the following:
1. Conversations
for ethical play: children love good
using metaphor
to assess
and evil issues! You can tell the species is programmed
things
as
or bad?we
feel
nourished
marvel
positively
by Templeton's
good
ous avarice and the geese's misuse
of freedom.
2. Conversations
3. Conversations
just for the sake of joy in sharing ideas.
are earnest and not related to the child's
which
to other? not instructions
from a large, powerful parent to
family but
a small, weak child about
at hand. It is
practical issues close
horrify
to
some
never
in
the
hear how
families
children
hear a conversa
ing
tion that is about unfamiliar
4. Conversations
mentor
asked for information
5. Conversations
child's
which
people
have much
activity
about
of great courtesy:
instead of sacrificing
or animals
curiosity
the child's
or
things.
in them: after all, the
reading.
the mentor
the child
inquired about the
?
to grownup
buddies
in theway that the kidding father sacrificed the childwho hadwrit
ten
a
poem.
What good is all this?What
if there always has been a psychological class
a
our
system without
taking it for psychological
same
was
the
way there
always electromagnetic
class system, in somewhat
presence around our planet
33
before we
on
it as such.
It was
to learn about
magnetic
handy
was
the
of magnetism
fields,
compasses
presence
develop
that the medieval Catholic Church
franti
accepted. I think it is fascinating
on
the study of magnetism
occasion
and
excommunicated
cally opposed
and
focussed
to
once
in their binnacles.
ships' captains who kept compasses
someone
is always
There
who will
lose power if a new
force
is recog
nized. It did not help thewheelwrights of England to have the steelwheel
tyres come inwith
lost considerable
clout when
and rubber
the car. The power-habituated
parish priest
consulted
their compasses
instead of
seamen
him for prayers for fair winds.
petitioning
If it turns out that there is a natural psychological
as
claims
pattern for
growth
for individual people's
the old-hat determinism
groups
stage-development
(classes), just
moral
then some people embracing
reasoning,
suffer having
their ideas seem less interesting?or
will
?
out of date.
is the now
death to academics
Sociology
worse,
somewhat
which
is
scorned
field among the social sciences: it is the fieldwhich decided to be ethics-free
about forty years ago. It decided to describe how groups of people of differ
itself to
act, but not to fight for justice for them or commit
ing heritages
are
some natural class
unfair.
admitting
phenomena
grossly
If there turns out to be a kind of identifiable, studiable grid of psycho
or
we accept the presence of it
logical development
(by classes
enclaves) and
we
accepted once, and still accept, the presence of electricity with
(the way
case the
in which
its behaviors), we are going to stop being determinists,
chill-hearted
deterministic
fields of social science will look dreadful just as
the Church looked dreadful when
sciences. We
will
certainly work
with
it blocked early use of the natural
them! No
one with
an inch and a
half of sanity behind the foreheadwould fail to use tools to free first chil
dren,
then adults,
Social workers
habitats
habitats
produce
produce
studies done will
from psychological
low-life.
and family systems therapists already know that specific
of course) full-hearted people and other
(with exceptions
of course) ethical slobs. Some of the
(with exceptions
be spectacularly hateful to fundamentalist
For
Christians.
II, people who
example,
during World War
spontaneously
endangered
themselves and their families saving Jews came not from rigid families with
strong paternal discipline but from homes where caring, relaxed, compara
as amatter of course. In
adults modeled
helping others
tively undoctrinal
34
case the adults treated the children with
not
every
courtesy and respect. They did
"set their teeth on edge" as so many moralistic
parents do their children.
of
son's
dad
makes
fun
his
When
the kidding
poem, he sets the child's teeth
on
too. If the child were to say, "Dad, you have just set my teeth on
once
we know
that Dad would
say, "Can't you take a
edge yet
again!"
to take
joke? Iwas just kidding you. You'd better learn
sonny!"
kidding,
we
of
families
the
One
fact
about
stage-development
psychological
edge,
already know is: Being raisedwithout beingjeered at produces human beings
are not blood relations.
to take courageous action on
willing
behalf of people who
side we know: Being bullied vitiates a human being's
And on the negative
to decide, on his or her own, whether or not to take an action.
daring
Let us suppose that some combination
of skilled and caring people such
as school
offer
social workers
literature
ing with
courses
one another
and elementary
school English
teachers decided to
to show children better ways of interact
designed
than the ways their families now interact. (These peo
intervene inmuch the same way that social workers
intervene in
ple would
to
crisis situations
such as battering
The
used
child
being "kid
families.)
an
in an English class team-taught
ded" will have the experience,
Eng
by
It is important
lish teacher and a social worker,
of being treated earnestly.
to remember
cartoons are
that all Saturday morning
kidding. Most of the
are
cartoons
is ironic and
plots of those
practical jokes. All the conversation
So
therefore
of
and
anti-intellectual.
interaction,
any program
disrespectful
stories
of
the
and
school
poems
using
ordinary elementary
anthologies,
will
tens of thousands of children will have
earnest discussion
only
If these children write journals, it will be the only acknowledg
of personal history
in the lives of tens of thousands of children.
If
be the
ever heard.
ment
these children
friends,
about
and "fairness"
hearing their own voices and the voices of their
like "goodness"
and "cruelty"
ethics, using abstract words
it will be for those tens of thousands of chil
and "others,"
talk aloud,
dren their only experience of abstract
mentors
and peers together.
Will
concepts
being
used with
respect,
by
itmake much difference? Peoplewith inherited privilege anduseful
to
States anyway.
the United
old-boy networks may continue
impoverish
Even if all the violent TV watchers
and all the anti-poetry
and anti-intellec
tual jeerers in the United
States rose up and protested
the S & L bailout,
they probably
couldn't
prevail. We
live,
after
all,
in a
kakistocracy?
35
men. Worst
men know intricate ways to protect
government
by the worst
their interests. I bring up this example that "won't work"
in order to pro
first remark to therapands who
pose that psychotherapists'
say, "Oh that'll
never work!"
is "We don't know what will work.
Let's look at what
for you now, and in the past. And let's look at what hasn't worked
for you. Let's leave the future alone for now."
can
are wrong:
Let's make a loose list of facts. We
adjust them if they
or
we
not
1. The
do
their children
rich,
suppose,
get themselves
works
through
first-rate,
tremendously
expensive
schools just
so
they
can
spend
hours and hours of their adult life consciously galled and shamedby Ameri
can national
behavior.
The
upper
class has its own
style of pain avoidance.
it isn't an
government:
are now
to our heartless
objecting
privileged
accident that they have come to the fight late, years after Utne Reader and Z
and XXIII
of ethical
Publications
and all the other vanguards
Magazine
The
are slow to move
Comfortable
writing.
people
ethically.
2. But everyone avoids pain. We
do it in the style we were brought up
to unless someone has intervened. Adult
to give one
alcoholics,
example,
to
often come from families whose
pain-avoidance
style is
deny anything
ever say, "Mom has a
at all. An alcoholic
untowards
family won't
drinking
Mom
"So
takes a few drinks now and
say instead,
They will
problem."
"
in
then! You perfect yourself or what?
If people have had no education
and have dosed themselves
literature and history,
televi
with
habitually
sion,
all serious activity with
sneers, they too will have a
serious newspapers;
of
avoidance.
avoid
pain
style
They
they
in announcing
and womanly
that it's out of their
satisfaction
and have met
characteristic
take manly
hands anyway,
regardless
of what
"it" is; they typically
choose
to fill their
houses with high-decibel sound, which provides such a high threshold of
more full of
than it is.
interesting,
meaning,
not expect to
in demo
participate
They avoid public TV because they do
assessment of
cratic decision-making
past the most rudimentary
presiden
tial candidates
four
Their
educational
didn't
every
years.
background
stimulus
that life seems more
promise any political meaning in life so they feel left out of political discus
in the same way
that my
than three or four minutes,
of a
did not lead me to expect, and therefore achieve, mastery
background
room
in
I've
the
the
lived
abroad
and
when
company
foreign language:
for
benefit,
my response has been to get
my
stopped speaking English
sions that last more
36
it make
Did
me
chide myself
and say, "Look, why don't you
don't you speak German
seriously? Why
shape up and study Norwegian
more
to use in "?ber
a
of
that Goethe
words
with
happened
vocabulary
depressed.
... ?
don't you practice French until you have it fast
alle Gipfeln"
Why
so
out of the queue in the PTT?"
I
enough
people don't dare shove you
the psychological
haven't chided myself
like that. I have rested with
expec
were to read some
for
tations of my class?which
the lit
foreign languages
erature but be content
to grin
apologetically
all across Europe.
I therefore
empathize with the kidder in the family room. His or her background did
the right to some fun when
promise
lying around the house.
atten
3. This is one of the oldest ideas in social psychology
but itwants
as
tion: it is, Michael Arlen mourned
in Passage toMt. Ararat, that people
who live the little bourgeois
life concern themselves addictively with
their
own
interests. You can hardly rouse them to concern about peo
provincial
or non-educated
met
haven't
middle-class
ple they
personally. Halfpeople
?
concern themselves with
the props and bumps of their own lives
the new
27-incher
devastation
and the car seats ?and
of American
ties, which
whose
includes
learned
parents
experiencing
uneducated.
dismantling
public
so
today,
history don't know the simplest data. We
the children of educated people
whenever
history,
some
discultivation
It is an outcome
of public
is short. The
of history
worst
in
is
the humani
funding
tens of thousands
of Americans
their memory
education
of television-watching
education. Most
high school
are
are
and the Republican
teachers don't know
events once the TV anchors no
any history. Remembering
longer cite
in sensing
them isn't a general goal. Some people have no experience
history
in the
making.
seri
if one takes history
and culturally
grows psychologically
us
two
into
is
ele
because "taking history
ously.
seriously" pushes
not
gant steps: first, one forces oneself to put galling news into long-term,
means
It
Gen
short-term
for
that
memory.
just
remembering,
example,
4. One
That
eral Schwartzkopf
remarked
in the autumn
of 1989 that if there were
awar
in the PersianGulf itwould be a "catastrophe." (Quoted in theNew York
to realize
such a thing? It is important
are
out
placed, well-thought-of
people
capable of carrying
orders given by fools or rascals even when
have
know
and
well
stated,
they
is
ahead of time, that those the orders will bring about a catastrophe. What
Times). Why
that highly
should we
remember
37
so
about
important
that?
If one
or
unlucky
psychologically
of life's rightful choices and calls
is either
one abdicates from most
unsophisticated,
"fate": that is, one says to oneself, "If one is a soldier one kills
everything
when ordered." But if one is a choice-making
privi
(thus psychologically
one resigns from an organization
than do its dirty
rather
person,
leged)
work.
5.
nearly
doing
events in a quiet, safe-hearted group, one loses
public
sees famous
as such. One
for authority
public figures
actions and telling appalling lies. Literature makes a kind
If one discusses
all respect
appalling
of laundry hamper of tossed psychological evidence; if one has read and
in a quiet,
is built is up for grabs.
character
which one can observe and predict
talked
about
literature
group, one sees that how
appear to be causes and effects
safe-hearted
There
from! Children
see that Ariel's mother,
in Charlotte's Web,
is conventional
and therefore lives a
and unimaginative
far less joyful life than Ariel does. In a quiet, safe-hearted place people use
as
to
own
not
experiences
only literature, but also their
possible analogs
some of their own
can
events.
reactions,
psychological
public
They
predict
of
unconscious
and
unreal
flooded
with
instead
angers
being
consciously,
is a perfect
There
what happened.
knowing
in interactionary
skills in the old movie,
Gulliver's Travels, nicely
on me when
Iwas a child. Let me add that to the list! Here it is:
istic attitudes
lesson
wasted
6.
even
without
If children
but lack skillfully mentored
as
it
about human behavior
appears in the literature, much
lost on them. How people relate literature to life is dictated
read literature
we call their "class
Point
background."
logical habitat
the stories
young, my friend's parents never discussed
conversations
of the effect
is
by the psycho
in case: when
Iwas
she read. Their
one
to hide your
remark
perfectly well you don't get
nose in books until you've done your chores!" They took literature only for
one hid one's nose in, and what was
was maintenance
of
something
good
to her was,
"You know
the homestead (chores?by definition repetitive and boring). The child
is to be expected
and that being able to
then, that boredom
a point. Boredom
to
It's
is real
character.
work
shows
boring
interest or terror or grief intervene.
for all species: only intellectual
was
taught,
apply oneself
My background was different, but psychologically wasteful of literature
in its own way.
Iwas
family, the Lilliputians'
38
taken to see Gulliver's
ingenuity
Travels
and loved,
in tying up the giant, winching
as did my
him up
with
coarse but
shoving
sturdy blocks,
to the castle. The moviemakers
a flatbed
cart under him,
and drag
omitted the mechanical
ging him
ingenuity
that Jonathan Swift laced the original book with: when
the castle caught
and got the fire out. My fam
fire, Gulliver made water into all its windows
in
it
town
of
the
?the
medievality
ily delighted
fairy tale aspects ?the
crier. The movie
was
to make
great pains
arrows
carrying
chock
Gulliver
too. The
to
full of good will,
Lilliputians went
a new suit of clothes: Archers had to shoot
thread through
home-built
three-hole
buttons
at the neck
opening of his shirt.My family discussed themovie a)with enjoyment of
the funny mechanics,
fore, proudly making
what
little
of Swift's
b) having
been
come
to the last two
7. Literature
ideas Walt
Disney
because in my
in the movie),
and
family people dealt with
left
in relationship
list:
interest
items for our
can be talked about
in the 3rd and 4th grades
psychologically.
(That would
of how people handle themselves
conversations
erable refinement of most
selves: we must
and "Consider
and there
the parallel between Lilliput and England (with
core
c) ignoring all relationship-process
each other with humor but without
We
in by our parents,
clued
skills.
as
examples
be a consid
about how people handle them
"
all be tired of "Do you hear yourself, what you're saying?
of the lowest level of inchoate if
the source!" ?examples
unmistakably
engaged
such skilled, mentored
psychological
conversations
assessment.) An
about behavior
incidental
would
blessing of
be that they
consciousness
hurry the children through the lower psychological
levels such as anger or superiority. The more children are hurried through
those stages at age eight or nine, the fewer of them will be aggravating
their families with
that particular kind of rudeness at age thirty! If this
would
seem so coarse if you jot down the names of seven
or
bullies whom
and
you happen to know,
eight simplistic psychological
then ask yourself if itwouldn't
be an improvement
if they had learnt some
were eight, well before you met
other way to think and converse when
they
sounds coarse,
it doesn't
them.
8. (The most
the protagonist
to be
vital and society-changing
idea.) Imagining oneself
or any of the characters in awork of literature.
as
Unlikely
it sounds to those of us in our fifties and sixties and
higher, most children
in the stories
now, studies suggest, do not really imagine themselves
they
read. Children
whose
parents
read aloud
to them
tend
to, but
children
39
on very loud music or television rather than books tend to read
brought up
the words
but cannot playfully
there, in the stories.
imagine themselves
Let us imagine that a kid has been brought up in an intellectually lifeless
or her parents never talk about ideas around the house.
down journals. The parents, perhaps, believe kids should
No one writes
so the
not
are
do imaginative
learn data,
process,
only books in the house
environment.
His
?
very dull World Book, let us say.Never in this child's life has he or she
heard
you do if you were
"What would
the question,
in such-and-such
predicament?"
class to describe
In the 4th grade, a teacher asks the whole
of the fox, the sausage, the crow, and the goose who go
a
the characters
into
the wide
world together to seek a fortune (in The Wonder Clock by Howard Pyle).
to eat both the sausage
the fox and goose marry and the fox contrives
the goose gainsays him, he bites her head off too and
and the crow. When
makes a soft bed of her feathers. Pyle remarks at the end, in a joyful reck
are the ways
"I tell you this: the ways of the world
lessness of philosophy,
Soon
of the world,
cussion
even
in the dark forest!"
going: what
are the ways
Let us say a good teacher gets a dis
and what would be ways not
of the world
of theworld, but of principle?
a
in to build a psycho
question alone is like first fence pole augered
a child's mind between
it is,
cynicism
("That's how
logical fence inside
own
into
ethical
the
child's
and imaginative
feelings.
inquiry
period!")
As the years of studying literature go on, this young person reads more
sur
in which
the hero of the story has difficulty
literature,
complicated
The
mounting
the moment's
pressures
in order
to
accomplish
long-term
decency. I think of Lord Jim panicking, andjumping into the lifeboatwith
the other whites.
I think of the stepmother
fast to save the girl.
in Alice Munro's
"Royal
Beat
not moving
ings"
In many of the literature
is about what psycho
classes, the discussion
or
not involved.
are involved
It is important
logical and ethical principles
here iswhy. When
what gets
that human voices discuss these principles:
validated
in the classroom
is just
the technical
success of the author
people
will think only slightly about the principles involved. Idealism, therefore,
hidden inside the young
it
then
young people won't
age
"
behave in that situation?
remains
40
If teachers don't encour
person's mind.
I
"How would
learn to ask themselves,
me to
as serious is the number of
regard it
brought
no use of the
poetry
English majors and graduate students who have made
of Siegfried Sassoon, and Erich Remarque's
All Quiet on theWestern Front,
Is this serious? What
it quite clear that joining armies is not away to
glory. What
to the literature after
must
It
it?
into them,
read
have
sunk
happened
they
not
It
is
made real, somehow.
that Philip Caputo,
unimagined,
amazing
are
the author of A Rumor ofWar, whose
chapter headings
elegant and apt
which
make
was
and who
literary quotations,
a
graduate
student
in literature
himself,
joined theMarine Corps looking formeaning and glory. The clue to this
I think, lies in his
odd missing-of-the-whole-point
of literature,
having
been brought up, as he explains, in the unnuminous
of amid
surroundings
west
suburb. The only times his spirit glowed was when he was in nature,
in thewoods hunting.What
to Sassoon's
in reference
would
have found
weren't
numinous,
a home
ifhe andhis parents had discussedWorld War I
and Remarque's
views? Perhaps Caputo's
soul
mown
in those very conversations:
if the
lawns
at least there would
have been high
seriousness
in the
family circle.
Back once more
to the
we are imagining:
the boy whose
dad is the
boy
kidder in the family room. We
said that he heard no serious conversation
about anything until his 4th-grade English teacher engaged him in a group
us say, he was
thinking about the Pyle story. Later, let
lucky: he joined
other groups which
discussed
literature, expressly asking for the insights
one gets if one imagines oneself as someone else.
let us say that this boy is eighteen and is drafted
He cannot prove conscientious
because
objection
Then
War.
is keen
of his family)
day, at Song My
church
One
or
My
on
for the Vietnam
his church
war
service. Off he goes
patriotic
Lai, an officer orders him to exterminate
(the
then.
a vil
lage full of civilians. His family background, in itself,would not lead him
to do
but follow orders. But he had more
than family back
anything
a
an earnest
he had
of ethics with
few hours' skilled discussion
ground:
and a group of his peers who were not jeering
nestness because the
ground rules of such discussions
mentor
He
refuses
prohibit jeering.
The military
code has in fact been amended
can refuse an order he or she considers evil.
the command.
that a young officer
Of course we don't
discussion
at one another's
ear
so
if adding ethical mentorship
and courteous
courses in
schools and high schools
elementary
know
skills to English
41
as
to
events.
possible analogs
experiences
public
so
far? Is the United
has it been working
ask themselves: How
fair way to protect its foreign policy from further indecency and
tic politics from further ravenous theft? Does our middle-class
also their own
feel entitled
to be
emotionally
capable of remembering
history
immature?
psychologically
and incapable of recording
They
States
can
in a
its domes
American
chaotic?
in
his or her own
growth?
is the hopeful one: if there are some techniques
of
question
so
in
the forces
that heretofore
intervening with
people's backgrounds
can become earnest and courteous
consumers
childish
and
cynical
philoso
The
phers,
42
next
are we
up for trying
it?