Joseph Whiting

EDF 520/05

2/4/98

Reflective paper #1

I'm torn. I'm suspicious when I hear someone say that the path to truth lies in the discovery of our own childhoods. I think, as Lucia Hodgson predicts I will, that she whines and composes a picture of victimization when she finds the root of all dysfunction in our mistreatment as children. But I also know she's right that the particular baggage of adulthood is brought dangerously to bear on kids.

And to anticipate Hodgson's reaction, I think she would point out that I'm bringing my particular baggage to bear on this question of how children are robbed of their innocence and doomed to a squalid life of bigotry and dysfunctional relationships. I agree with her observation that popular media is less a reflection of our predicament than a cruel driving force behind it. This is something I hope to spend more time on in this course. Corporate single-mindedness in pursuing amoral goals results in the loss of one of the greatest potential contributions to society. Maybe this is what the author means when she refers to the insistence on individual responsibility as the abandonment of collective responsibility. But that's why I think it's more productive to learn to shed our constraints and build new agreements - like kids do - than to dwell on what was wrong in our own childhoods.

One aspect of her view that I have a hard time relating to is her idea that children are inherently disadvantaged - unempowered and unprotected - and that adulthood is the inevitable poor outcome of a dismal childhood. Just a little gloomy. Adults are not bad, and moves toward adulthood are not necessarily toward ever-deepening guilt. A lot of good and fun comes from adult ventures. I hope that what Hodgson is driving at is that enjoying the child in ourselves and the child in our kids will foster the empathy necessary for society to begin to tackle the problems she observes. The way Hodgson puts is that we must identify with the mistreated kids and believe in the negative consequences of their suffering to be able to empathize at a meaningful level. That may be true - it's generally true, not just about kids - but I think it's at least as important to empathize with what's good and common between adults and kids; that is the capacity for fun and unselfconscious giving.