Wednesday, November 13, 2002
The stunting of our childrens growth
Saw the following in an MSNBC.com article yesterday:
And goes on to quote a 5th grader as saying:
As a society, we have stunted the growth of our children. We no longer allow them to think on their own. We have reduced the realm of the imagination, in some instances we've come very close to abolishing it altogether. This is a trend that G.K. Chesterton picked up on decades ago and which continues today.
In his book Heretics, Chesterton wrote:
Let us allow our children to keep their large ideas and create distance. Don't "stupidly destroy" them.
Saw the following in an MSNBC.com article yesterday:
...the singular images of Hollywood, filled with special effects and beamed larger than life on theater screens, can challenge — and sometimes destroy — what readers imagine on their own.
And goes on to quote a 5th grader as saying:
After I saw the movie [last year], all I could imagine was scenes from the movie. I don’t really like that.
As a society, we have stunted the growth of our children. We no longer allow them to think on their own. We have reduced the realm of the imagination, in some instances we've come very close to abolishing it altogether. This is a trend that G.K. Chesterton picked up on decades ago and which continues today.
In his book Heretics, Chesterton wrote:
It is inspiriting without doubt to whizz in a motor-car round the earth, to feel Arabia as a whirl of sand or China as a flash of rice-fields. But Arabia is not a whirl of sand and China is not a flash of rice-fields. They are ancient civilizations with strange virtues buried like treasures. If we wish to understand them it must not be as tourists or inquirers, it must be with the loyalty of children and the great patience of poets. To conquer these places is to lose them. The man standing in his own kitchen-garden, with fairyland opening at the gate, is the man with large ideas. His mind creates distance; the motor-car stupidly destroys it.
Let us allow our children to keep their large ideas and create distance. Don't "stupidly destroy" them.
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