RE: unless ye become as little children


Subject: RE: unless ye become as little children
From: Micaela (mbombard@middlebury.edu)
Date: Sun May 12 2002 - 11:20:12 EDT


While many of you East of the Atlantic may believe us American to have idealized notions about children (which I am not wholly denying), I feel the need to put in my two cents. We too, ordinarily consider Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm as staples of high school reading. So I don't think you can simply chalk the views up to be reinforced by our standards of literature.

Secondly, I think that we are discounting the basics of child psychology. So maybe you all have the worlds brattiest kids, so what. While all kids (and adults) have these selfish tendencies, they are, admittedly, to varying degrees (thank God). I think the writings of Foucault and Freud are very interesting on the stages of childhood development. A child DOES almost literally live in a state of awe. How wonderful to see the world as one giant oceanic state, not discerning oneself from the entirety. It seems so close to the ideals of Buddhism. To a baby, you are as much the baby as the baby is you. This recalls a quote from Teddy about how when he was six he realized that Booper was God and her milk was God and she was "just pouring God into God." Teddy's mind has stayed in the oceanic state, not allowing things to "stop off" all of the time. When we play peek-a-boo with a child, they truly think we are disappearing a reappearing...and how magical does that seem?

I'm not saying that I adore all children, hell, I've certainly had my share of babysitting violent little brats, but there still remains a fundamental difference between the MINDSET of the child and the adult, despite the far reaches of the Atlantic, despite last September, despite a world full of horrid little children. Salinger's obsession with "adult-like" children seems to negate a lot of the unseemly elements of childhood (as we see in young Booper who has not been reincarnated many times) and to reinforce the positive (perhaps "oceanic") aspects of the minds of children, which thus contribute to their more enlightened states.

-Micaela

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bananafish@roughdraft.org
[mailto:owner-bananafish@roughdraft.org]On Behalf Of James Rovira
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2002 9:12 PM
To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
Subject: Re: unless ye become as little children

While of course there are people on this side of the Atlantic who don't harbor any illusions about what children are really like (i.e., those that actually have children), I think there's a lot to be said for your ideas here. Of all the teachings of Christ we could have focused upon -- and the values that proceed from them -- we seem to have fixed upon this thing about children. What kind of a society wouldd we have if "be wise as serpents, but harmless as doves" was the dominant teaching, or even "love your neighbor as you love yourself?"

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: "Robert Bowman" <rbowman@indigo.ie>
To: <bananafish@roughdraft.org>
Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 20:45:21 +0100
Subject: unless ye become as little children

    Is it pushing things too far to suggest that the divergence
    of views between Valèrie & Micaela on the simplicity
    of children is a reflection of the wide Atlantic itself?

    I realise this is an old, & by now very boring, hobby-horse
    of mine but I don't apologise for it. The mutual misapprehension
    of the two cultures has engaged much better men than me:
    Twain, Henry James, the Expatriates of the Twenties,
    Graham Greene - to name only two.

    Although I know The Catcher appeared on the syllabus
    of the more enlightened secondary schools of these lands,
    what was much more extensively prescribed was
    William Golding's Lord of the Flies - a darker vision
    of boyhood altogether. All my sons' generation read it
    for their Leaving Certificate, along with Animal Farm
    - not exactly the most optimistic of works, either.

    Surely in almost all his stuff, Salinger assumes somewhere,
    a state of blessed innocence to which all of us could,
    or should, aspire (as saints) or revert (as children).
    And isn't this an inherent part of the American Dream?
    When Micaela hopes to God she won't, in twenty years,
    be dulled by cyncism & disillusion, I think she's expressing
    a sentiment deeply felt by her compatriots & not just
    her contemporaries. In the Dream, when the wagons
    roll west what moves us, surely, is the optimism undismayed
    by considerations of mere reality? And what about those
    two great archetypes, Huck & Gatsby? One a rogue,
    the other a crook, yet both retaining a buoyancy that
    derives from their essential naivetĂ©.

    An important part of the American self image is a kindly,
    innocent confidence - exploited all too often by the envious
    world. But there it persists: undeterred, rising once again
    up off the floor & ready to save the rest of us with
    food parcels & lectures on the nature of democracy.
    This is Love for the Fat Lady made manifest.

    The startling visibility of September Eleven rendered
    it indelible for everyone - no matter what part of the world
    they witnessed it. But away down deep, beneath the revulsion,
    was the feeling among many non-Americans that this was
    a long overdue disillusioning. For how many great European cities
    - within living memory - was the death of a few thousands
    in a morning by no means a one-off?

    Salinger is, of course, greatly cherished in Europe &
    elsewhere but I doubt he ever enjoyed there, or could enjoy,
    the acceptance that arises from that conviction he shares
    with so many of his countrymen, the conviction:
    'YES. If we'd only shed all the shitty selfishness &
    become again as litle children we could make the world
    an Eden.'

    No one between the Brittany Coast & the Ural Mountains
    could ever again possibly believe that.

    Scottie B.

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