Childism – John Wall’s Models
There’s an ism for everything. This is #childism – found it while researching for someone who is fighting for the #16tovote
It’s from a very postmodern text Ethics in Light of Childhood by John Wall.
I remember as a kid loving and hating being told I “have potential”. In one sense, it was a compliment: it means they see something good in me… but….
… by making it “potential” it became “Not Good Enough Yet” and I felt that. It was annoying.
I knew I wasn’t bad but I also knew I wasn’t some innocent and I wasn’t “in development”: I was me. I am me.
I never forgot how much that bothered me. I knew i wasn’t the only one that thought that way. So, it’s nice to see it reflected here.
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“A top-down childism tends to interpret human
beings as rather like ants: finding a sense of purpose through their roles in a larger
social order. A bottom-up view sees people as more like spiders: spinning from
within themselves strong silken threads against the winds of the world. Develop-
mentalists view humanity along the lines of flies: passing through stages of meta-
morphosis to eventually swarm into flight. My own view, in contrast, is that human
beings in light of childhood are more like bees: circling widely in diverse fields to
create a rich honey for the hive.” -John Wall
Helping someone work with their local politicians to introduce #16tovote for their local elections. [mayor and county level] and in the process of research, came across a guy named John Wall who wrote a book about what he called “childism”: this idea that how we view humanity is based upon what metaphors we use to treat children in a society.
It’s from “Ethics in Light of Childhood”. Post modern stuff: he even describes it as post modern. Anyway, reading through it now.
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