The Social Evolution of the Wondrous Child
[I wrote this in early August of last year just for fun. I don't consider myself a very powerful philosopher but the act of writing philosophy does occasionally have a cathartic effect for me. It feels as though I'm validating something deep within me. I remember when I finished writing this I walked out of the Drexel library, listening to "Age of Consent" by New Order. I felt like my eyes were open for the first time; the sunlight glistened beautifully on all the cars and people and concrete and asphalt. It was a very empowering and beautiful sensation. I recommend to any reluctant philosophers to smash the wave of your intellect against the hard cold stone of reality. The worst that can happen would be to discover discrepancies between your understanding and reality, and how bad is that?! At least then you are more aware of both your mind and reality!]
We have made a business of childlike perception. To appreciate the gifts of life – namely, the senses, both mental and physical – is to find wonder in the discovery of all new objects. To find wonder is to affirm existence itself: to feel infinite worth in each breath! Does the child (let us call him male, for semantic ease) see a tree and logic his way toward the conclusion that the tree ought to be climbed, touched, worshipped, imagined to be a spaceship or something else nonsensical? It is not logic, but wondrous play, that drives the child to do such things. It is not even an escape from boredom, as is so often the case in adults’ versions of play. It is simply a surging life force that does not question itself and thusly feels uninhibited by moralistic, or even social, considerations.
As we get older we are expected to control our behavior to adapt to the standards of the “real” world. The child, fortunately, is (usually, in this society anyhow) protected and does not have to fend for himself until he reaches ages sixteen or eighteen. Thusly carefree his play-drive is extraordinarily uninhibited. However, to survive in society the child must learn to play by the pre-existing rules. In some way or another we must eat, drink, and keep our bodies safe. The most civilized way to do this is to make money.
How does the child with wonder in his eyes hope to make money? All he cares about is wonder; his value is infinite, unquestionable, and thus he does not understand the concept of valuation itself. To the wondrous child school grades misjudge character and worth, money doesn’t reflect worth but rather, reflects only manipulative willpower and luck. There is no logic to wonder. It cannot be measured. And thus the wondrous child too feels he cannot be measured. But he is measured, as are we all in some fashion.
This is how it comes to pass that a deeply loving parent can feel justified in being cruel to his or her child. Thus the virtue of discipline becomes civilization’s most valued wisdom. But what virtue is more relative than discipline! It varies entirely from society to society, because it is simply the extension of the society’s rules. Disciplinarians preach the techniques best suited for survival, and in civilized society the will to survive is guided by law and commerce. Thus we are all, criminal or citizen, in some way disciplined, having had survived long and well enough to understand this modest text.
But what happens to the wondrous child? What happens to infinite value and the uninhibited play-drive? Well, in some way or another the wondrous child is expected to become inhibited, as are we all. It is argued that inhibition is a worthy cost for the rule of law and protection against nature’s chaos in civilized communities, and I dare not argue against that. I only aim to describe the social evolution from wondrous child to tempered adult.
Allow me first to clarify a careless distinction I have been making, which is the difference between the wondrous child and ‘we all’. I believe ALL people are born with some sense of play-drive and infinite self-value. However, some children devote their lives more to their sense of infinite self-value while others adapt more readily to the means of survival. This devotion depends largely on nurturing and social circumstances. The child that is pampered and protected while simultaneously allowed freedom to play uninhibitedly will nurture his sense of wonder without regard to future threats. The child that is threatened and neglected while simultaneously stripped of his freedom to play (for the sake of, say, chores or other such duties) will nurture his sense of wonder with great regard to future threats. The latter child, devoted to survival, does not abandon wonder completely; indeed, he can not, for without some sense of wonder and unconditional self-worth what motive would he have to regard the future as potentially worthwhile. In this way does he manifest his self-worth in the form of HOPE, while the former child manifests his self-worth in the form of APPRECIATION. Thus do all humans bear some relation to their inner wondrous child.
However, within the circuitous channels that permeate through the means of survival, it is often required of the tempered adult to feel neither hope nor appreciation, but to abstract himself from his activity for the sake of the security of his future. Thus hope loses its vigor and becomes a cold arbiter of logic. What he does for a living is not inspired or creative but rather it is a logical conclusion given the following premises: 1. I want to survive (or ‘I want to maintain x lifestyle’ or ‘I want to attain y lifestyle’); 2. This occupation will afford me the means to survive (or maintain x lifestyle or attain y lifestyle); 3. Therefore, I ought to maintain this occupation. The whole syllogism presupposes a hope to appreciate. But the actual act of feeling appreciative, or even feeling hopeful to appreciate, is removed from the conclusion. Thus is the tempered adult guided by reason and not feeling, despite the reason being TO FEEL. The more the tempered adult desires, the more reason guides his way to achieve his desires, the more removed he becomes from wonder and infinite value.
Still, existence must be appreciated on some level; otherwise, the tempered adult would lose even his hopes. Balancing our survival methods are objects to appreciate. Thus we have hobbies, thus we have love and, most importantly for this writing, thus we have art. It is the job of the artist to craft a new sort of perceptual object to be appreciated, to inspire wonder. This teleological perspective of the artist seems, for lack of a better expression, to be outside looking in, or utilitarian. This as opposed to the poet and philosopher Friedrich Schiller’s perspective of the artist. Schiller writes in his letters in “On the Aesthetic Education of Mankind” that art is a natural expression of freedom, which a proper balance in nature between scarcity and plenitude affords. He believes the artist abstracts semblance from form, thus implicitly expressing the freedom to control. Schiller therefore is tapped into more of the internal drive of the artist – inside looking out.
Regardless, art tingles with the remnants of an uninhibited will power and also a lawful one! Thus the wondrous child-turned-tempered adult secures his play-drive in civilization by submitting himself to work in the business of childlike perception. If we censor the products of this business we are only limiting our own abilities to freely abstract semblance from form. Kudos to the Supreme Court for recently likening violent video games to Grimm’s fairy tales. There is a wondrous child in all of us, and he believes in uninhibited play.