In Praise of Difficult Children (2009)
lrb.co.uk
lrb.co.uk
For example, this doesn't ring a bell :
> You thought that doing this – taking drugs, lying to your best friend – would give you the life you wanted; and then it doesn’t
Or this:
> You have to be bad in order to discover what kind of good you want to be (or are able to be).
To me, what was considered "good" was clearly laid out by parents and schools. I think it's the same here in the US: a large portion of the population follow the definition of "good" from their parents and churches (a bit less so from schools)
I would love to have some help to understand the article's viewpoint better.
Thank you.
Then I don't quite agree with the article on this. I don't need to "test the rules" myself to see if they are ready as important as everyone says. I can observe.
For example: I don't need to drive without a seatbelt to "test" whether seatbelt is as important as everyone says. I can observe that people without seatbelt have worse outcomes from accidents.
I think this might also be related to whether the kid grow up with parents they can trust and are able to explain the reasons behind "rules" to them. I was fortunate that my parents always tried their best to explain why I should or should not do something. I questioned them a lot, but defaulted to "trust" when they didnt have time to explain.
There is a trivial objection to every ethical position. The parent commenter is not suggesting every rule needs to be tested. But we can imagine plenty of situations where a form of rebellion would be endorsed by most, or may at least be supposed to be constructive to one’s identity. For instance, rejecting one’s family’s religious practices. Preferring tinkering alone in a milieu that prefers more extraverted, social activities and might view the aforementioned as a concerning form of lonerism. Living, briefly, a nomadic lifestyle. Historically (and, unfortunately, still into the present in some places), being sociable with people of differing race was/is met with censure and even threat of violence. And so on. Certain forms of cultural transgression are imperative, in my opinion, for the advancement and development of society, culture, and (as a downstream effect), technology.
There are certainly advantages to a more conservative, traditionalist societal arrangement as well. It’s a matter of balance.
Testing “seatbelts” doesn’t really take any freedom/adulthood for yourself.
Spending your earned money on something your parents don’t approve of, does.
- you need to get a college degree if you want to get a good job.
- work hard and you will be rewarded by your efforts.
- you can be good at anything if you stick long enough with it.
Would you agree that there is no way to reliably "observe" if these rules are true?
> follow the definition of "good" from their parents and churches
And different churches in your community teach different, contradictory things. Not just in small details but in really big things.
And your two parents don't agree on everything, and your friends' parents have different views as well, sometimes dramatically so. And sometimes you raise their views make more sense than your own parents' in some areas.
So how are you going to figure out which things to follow and which things to ignore?
There's a lot you just have to test and figure it for yourself. Especially since people are born with very different temperaments, so the rules one person follows may be very different from another -- like whether they consider getting up extremely early to be virtuous, or bad for their health.
"Fuck around and find out" is a great phrase to use in such cases.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. Even if a parent's advice is sound, a child may not trust the source for other reasons. If the parent's own behavior defies their advice, if the parent is overbearing, if the parent's expectations are unreasonable, if the parent never listens to the child... Shitty parents can make it extremely unpleasant to do what is right. And we haven't even gotten to actual trauma. People often have difficulty functioning in society when fear and anxiety are a part of their everyday life because their parents were abusive. And the thing is, traumatized people might really want to do the right thing, but they can't and they don't know why.
I figure something like that applies to kids too.
"Why should I go to bed at this time?" they will ask. Then they try staying up all night and realize they're useless the next day.
"Why shouldn't I drink?" they ask, then drink a lot and forget how they got home, but won't forget how sick they are the next day.
And this isn't a one off thing, many people continue this thing until well in their twenties; some never learn. But those that do and have kids of their own will continue the cycle; don't do this, do do that, because I found out the hard way that if you don't do as I'm trying to tell you, bad things will happen and your life may be worse off. In theory.
(many caveats there, I am not a psychologist, I'm just a 30 some year old who considered himself a good kid but ended up pretty under-matured with a load of relationship problems to show for it. And now a teenager in my house too, who is a lot more rebellious, lol)
It's important to note that neither of the cultures are 'better', and that also within populations there are great individual differences. In the chair example, the middle ground would be to consider the chairs a Chesterton's Fence (Why were they placed there? Is it to cover a spill?)
I find this hard to believe. Somethings may be difficult to learn without firsthand experience. Though I'm not convinced this is the same for everyone or that it applies to being 'bad'.
Some folks might not trust those authority figures and their advice. For those, doing wrong and discovering you don’t like it is a hard won life lesson.
Along a similar line, I’ve heard it say that if you consider yourself a peaceful person but are not actually capable of great violence, then are you actually peaceful or simply harmless? If you’re not capable of doing wrong perhaos you’re not good, simply neutral “robot” entity confined to your programming.
Why not both peaceful and harmless (for the moment)? This is a function of time. I don't think it's possible to make that statement without supplying the time parameter.
Also, I don't think peaceful people are not capable of great violence. It's about choice. I'm capable of violence, but I choose to not use that capability.
Avoiding guilt, or reprisals, doesn't make me "good".
All this reminded me of this fantastic Stargate SG-1 episode: https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Absolute_Power
Harmlessness and peaceability are orthogonal to each other. One can be violent and harmless just as easily as peaceable and dangerous.
Part of this might be just normal human nature; but a big part of it is that authority figures are often simply not reliable. They set and enforce rules based on fears, or their own convenience, or their own pride or status instead of actually making rules which are for the benefit of the person under authority.
It's like watching your toddler reach and put their hand out on a hot stove burner... knowing exactly what that's going to feel like... and not being able to do almost anything about it.
A truly difficult child will pester the parents about the quality of the societal ruleset they're supposed to obey, taking advantage of any obvious hypocrisy in the application of the ruleset, or internal contradictions, e.g. "so how come poor people go to jail for commiting a crime, when rich people just get a fine and don't have to go to jail?"
Eventually the frustrated parent will give in and admit that human society is ridden with hypocrisy and contradictions, which is probably all the difficult child was looking for - some honesty.
P.S. I think Bertrand Russell fits the definition of 'difficult' in this sense:
https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/
> "All this is only preliminary. I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by the belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work."
This was a good article until they started bringing in the Freudian mumbo jumbo
This implies that being truant from school is some kind of a self-betrayal. School as constituted over the last 50 years ago or so is effectively no different from prison for many many people. If you are sedentary, intellectually inclined, and not cut out for a job in the trades, school may be good for you.
If you need fresh air or are entrepreneurial or competitive in sports or are better suited for welding than for trig, it is 12 to 16 years of punishment and being ground down.
What changed 50 years ago?
>If you need fresh air
I got plenty of fresh air walking to and from school each day, as well as gym class, and recess in elementary school, intermural sports in high school.
>12 to 16 years of punishment and being ground down
In your example, why would someone attend 16 years if only 12 are required? Also, school year is only 35-40 weeks of the calendar year, so not really like a prison at all.
This has led to many people being steered into college or university when they should really just be out working a job. Hence the 16 year number.
I am delighted this system worked out for you. It is perfectly valid for many. It is also a hellhole for many others.
There should, at the very least, be something where you learn to follow instructions and put things together. Like ikea furniture. Learn how to hang a picture. And so on.
Heck, I know people who can barely change their light bulbs.
The intellectually inclined are also badly affected by school. The slow pace of learning stifles intellectual curiosity, and causes severe boredom. School is a nightmare that grinds them down while not allowing them to pursue their interests.
(Speaking for the UK, anyway.)
Sounds like one of those pseudo-profound woo statements.
Many people manage being perfect good, well-adjusted humans without going through a bout of "being bad".
The way I read it, that paragraph is not about whether anyone can be a well-adjusted human or not. Rather, it is about how specifically some people discover what kind of good they want to be by being bad.
In that sense, "you have to be bad" talks to those people specifically, and uses "have" to refer to that causal process.
(English is not my first language, so my interpretation may be very wrong.)
Thanks for the downvotes — mind explaining why? I have literally never seen anyone do this in the decade-plus I've been here, and thought it would be helpful to mention.