Leah Bodenhamer
In Response to Gatto’s “Against School” Essay
Though John Taylor Gatto’s essay overall had a powerful effect on me and my view of public schooling or any mass factory-like schooling, the part that stood out the most to me was Gatto’s elaboration on our nation’s maturity level as a whole. “Maturity has by now been banished from nearly every aspect of our lives” (Gatto, pg. 6). Not only have our children’s childhoods been extended another three of four years (forever trapping us in the cell of mediocrity?), according to Gatto, but our adult lives have been made so luxurious and overly simplified that it seems the extent of human development has been stunned by the boredom and thusly reduced to the mentality, in some respects, of a child. Divorce laws, credit regulations, and the internet all propose an annulment of independent responsibility, motivation, or sustainability.
To be mature is to exhibit an advanced state of emotional and mental evolution, or in other words, to be adult-like. Interestingly enough however is how our modern view of “adult” seems to become younger and younger in nature. Adults seem to be less interested in growing old, squeezing into smaller jeans, spending increasingly more money on anti-aging remedies, and generally obsessing over being young. In my life experience, to be considered a “hip” parent, many adults believe they need to be up-to-date with the lame jejuneness of the youth’s entertainment such as reality TV and cyber networking. My father’s girlfriend seems to exemplify more reckless and teenage-like behavior than my 18 year old peers. It hardly seems our own fault considering the media’s ever-present hum in every citizen’s ear. TV shows, commercials, magazines, billboards, newspapers, advertisements and any other method of imposing static idealism have become so prevalent in day to day life that its power is far beyond our awareness. The media also plays a key role in our decreasing respect for each other, particularly in intimate relationships, which further cements the notion of our nation’s mental de-evolution.
Leah:
ReplyDeleteI also think this is a point worth deliberation. Postponing adulthood has been a means to take pressure off the job market, but I think it is deeper and more pervasive than that. Some of it is especially pronounced in American culture, both the youth fixation you mention and the trend towards less individual responsibility for the consequences of choice. It's funny.... I don't object at all to the individual steps: unemployment insurance and job retraining, public health and safety rules discouraging smoking, helmet laws, social security, bankruptcy, drug and alcohol rehab.... I'm in favor of each of these, but their cumulative effect contributes to the lessening of the consequences of individual choice. Perhaps the shift is related to a change in how much we as individuals are able to control in our lives. In the past it was the weather (crops fail?) now it's the WTO (No price supports for wheat?).
Regardless of the source, the juvenilization has consequences in the workplace and the public arena: people are less inclined to assert themselves in a considered but emphatic way (as opposed to whining w/o actually expecting or actively pursuing change)
Alan
I agree with you! It seems to me as well that decisions are so easy for us these days. In much of American culture, there are few truly life-changing challenges to be faced. You're right that the media's presence doesn't help, as well. But is advertising really the only thing that sets our intellect apart from those of another century? Are we so easily brainwashed and babied just because of the media? Do you think that something could have changed within us metaphysically?
ReplyDeleteHmm, that is a very interesting concern Elena. I do not think it is only the media, but I do think the media's role in our lives is frequently overlooked. In my childhood I watched cartoons and all that with commercials, commercials, commercials, and I ate cereal for breakfast with advertisements plastered all over the box. Even in school I was plagued with advertisements, in and out of class, let alone the drive to school with the billboards and other signs advertising things we never really needed until someone told us we did. I think just because it is something that has been with many of us since childhood, the idea that it does not have an effect on our lives would be ignorant. Metaphysically though? I think definitely there have been changes in the way we perceive and value our world, but honestly I have not put enough thought into the topic to have a valid opinion.
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