I’m not sure when it happened. But at some point in the last 20 years or so, adults appear to have lost any awareness of the developmental differences between themselves and children.
Obviously I don’t mean the superficial physiological differences between grown ups and kids. I’m talking about an appreciation of the difference in cognitive, emotional and social maturity of the developing human being at the earliest stages of his or her life and that of the mature, fully responsible individual.
You don’t need to be a student of Piaget and Maslow to know this stuff. Until about 10 minutes ago the chasm that separated the psyche of the immature, inexperienced and still developing mind of a child and that of an adult was self-evident to average people. Not only did direct observation make this blatantly obvious, but what was once known as ‘common sense’ dictated that human beings who are essentially fresh out of the oven are not going to have the capacity for insight, discernment, personal autonomy, self-awareness, judgement, wisdom and comprehension as the fully mature adult.
It should be obvious to anyone that childhood is a period of extreme vulnerability. This is why adults… again until very, very recently… have always regarded the physical and psychological protection of children to be a primary duty. Children are just as vulnerable… if not more so… to adult influence, coercion and manipulation as they are to physical harm. Children lack autonomy. They lack the capacity to contextualize and evaluate what they are told. Even adults with far more life experience and resources to draw upon find it challenging to evaluate complex personal, social and political issues. If anything it often appears that adults have been getting steadily worse at this over the past decade or two.
Perhaps this is a clue as to why so many adults these days are eager to confer authority to the opinions of children like Greta Thunberg. After all, we only give credence to the opinions of people we think of as intellectually equal to ourselves… if not smarter than us. It would therefore appear that what was once a self evident chasm between the intellectual maturity of children and adults has narrowed within the last generation or two to the point of being almost indiscernible. And clearly not because children are leaping over sequential stages of growth towards maturity. But rather that adults are failing to mature intellectually and emotionally much beyond the stage of adolescence themselves. And whereas grown men and women in previous generations couldn’t help but be aware of the clear distinction between child and adult… what appears ‘self-evident’ to the adults of today is just how little there is that distinguishes themselves from children.
Donna F: Don’t agree that Greta is being “pushed” – she has a mind of her own!
Going To Getugly: Donna, she is a child. Which means she is at a stage in her development in which she knows nothing about everything. She also has a history of quite serious mental health issues. The problem is with the adults who are so consumed by the gratification they feel from elevating the capacity for insight of this child to near mystical status that they are completely indifferent to her being used as tool for propaganda.
Tim E: Going To Getugly you assume she knows nothing about everything. Assumption! In your world a 16 year old cannot be that intellectually aware. Another assumption. You also mention she has mental health issues, for what purpose you brought this forward is beyond me.
Going To Getugly: No Tim. I assume nothing. There’s this thing called ‘development’. Human beings go through particular developmental stages in cognition and in their emotional and social maturity. People such as yourself appear to be completely ignorant of this fact. You assume children are just short adults. You are mistaken. This mistake causes you to elevate the capacity for insight and maturity of little children to absurd levels.
The fact that it’s “beyond” you why it is relevant to consider the mental health of a little girl who has been exposed by the adults around her to international media attention and treated as a climate saint speaks volumes about the shallowness of your thinking about this issue. Not to mention your callousness.
This little girl has a history of depression, anxiety attacks… she has been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, Asperger’s syndrome, eating disorders and she has experienced phases of mutism.
And she’s only 16.
But why should we worry about any of that when adults like you and Donna are getting so much satisfaction from projecting all of your sentimental fantasies about a child climate saint onto this poor kid? That makes you the good and caring people and people like me who actually see a little girl and not my own romanticized projections the horrible and mean folks. Correct?
Comments