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"innocent? let's go back to that word...innocent"

  
 
mondo a-go-go
12:59 / 09.07.01
Aarrrrgh. I wanted to post this up when i had time and energy to sit and read/digest the answers, but it's been knocking around in my head for a coupla months and apparently i'm not the only one... so here it is.

i have this theory. i know it needs a little tweaking but here it is anyway.

the concept of "childhood innocence" is a twentieth century middle-class invention perpetuated by a mass-media that perviously had never existed, and it's a fallacy.

there's this notion of "innocence" that does not mean "the opposite of guilty". it's the idea that children should be protected from life as it is: sex, violence and so forth.

think about it, though, a hundred years or so ago, peasants/working-class people would live in very cramped conditions, and children would be exposed to such things on a daily basis. the same is still true in so-called developing countries. the idea of children being "innocent" and having to be protected was a middle-class notion, accessible only to those who could afford to protect their children from these things that apparently made them lose their innocence. this idea/meme spread with the onset of mass-media and a higher percentage of literacy, through tabloids and the like, but is it real?

in the "first love" thread over in the conversation, there's been chat about kids' sexuality and in this forum, there's the bulger killers' thread. i don't think these incidences are rare -- in personal experience, i experienced daily physical discomfort from kids who bullied me, and i was sexually active (solo) without necessarily knowing or understanding that's what i was being...

i think that the kind of innocence that this meme/idea refers to is actually "naivete". innocence is seen as a lack of mature/adult knowledge, at least that's my interpretation of intent.

i dunno, i'm not doing too good a job of expressing myself here, but i'll post this up for now.

i'll leave you with this (from the bulger killers thread):

We must redefine our definition of "innocence". Innocence isn't cuddly teddybears, Mummykins and snookums; innocence is an openness to new ideas, sensations, pleasures - including those we may now find upsetting, disturbing or revolting.
 
 
No star here laces
13:07 / 09.07.01
Nice thought.

I read a really interesting article on 'Samurai Parenting' in a Canadian horror fanzine which was kind of about this topic. Basically it was about the way Ogami Itto from the 'Lone Wolf and Cub' films (can't remember if the same thing happens in the manga) gives his infant son the choice between life and death (the kid has to choose between a toy ball and his father's sword - the ball means his dad will kill him, the sword means coming on the assassin's quest). The main thrust of the argument was that traditional Japanese culture doesn't recognise children as having any less responsibility than adults - i.e. by their values that child was perfectly capable of making that decision.

I don't know if it's a 20th century construction, this notion of innocence, but it's definitely something that's been growing more exaggerated as time goes on, but you can definitely see traces of it in Victorian literature, Dickens for example, and in the sentimentalised 'Little Lord Fauntleroy' attitude to children that existed then.
 
 
pebble
13:15 / 09.07.01
"The innocence of childhood is an adult myth" to parapharse some journalist I read just after the Arkansis killings.
I think it was Lance Morrow, but anyway.....

I think you're right Kooky - its a rather fucked, unrealistic way of looking at things, but I don't think its just a middle class thing. I think the condictions of the working class just make it harder for the parents to enforce the kind of overprotectiveness we think of as adding to 'childhood innocence.'

Its also an odd way of absolving children from some 'crimes.' If a child does something wrong, rather than punish them as they would if they were older, parents tend to laugh and say that the child didn't understand that it was wrong, that they're not old enough and so on. Basically using this notion as a protective from their child doing a bad thing. I guess this could be why child killers, like the Bulger or Arkansis pairs, shock everyone so much, as the enormanty of their crime seems to take away this defence.
 
 
No star here laces
13:21 / 09.07.01
Well, rewind a little - 'the enormity of their crime'?

Isn't it comments like that which show how deep this concept runs? Why is it worse to kill a child than an adult?
 
 
mondo a-go-go
13:23 / 09.07.01
quote:Originally posted by Garibaldi the Soul Brother:
The main thrust of the argument was that traditional Japanese culture doesn't recognise children as having any less responsibility than adults - i.e. by their values that child was perfectly capable of making that decision.

yeah, i once saw a kids' tv doc about very young children in japan being given resposibility -- toddlers shopping for food in the corner store etc..

quote:I don't know if it's a 20th century construction, this notion of innocence, but it's definitely something that's been growing more exaggerated as time goes on, but you can definitely see traces of it in Victorian literature, Dickens for example, and in the sentimentalised 'Little Lord Fauntleroy' attitude to children that existed then.

yes, i know, as i said, it was around 100yrs ago, but there wasn't as much literacy, so people weren't exposed to it at such a great degree. also, no tv/cinema etc...
 
 
Jamieon
13:39 / 09.07.01
Children are "innocent" to the extent that they exist outwith adult structures: moral, empirical, sexual, intellectual etc.

They are still learning, their psyche in the process of concretizing.

That is not to say they are inherently possessed of niceness, snookums, cuddleuggle, teddy love or any of the other sentimental, bourgeois traits applied to them by the Sun readers sickened and confused by the Bulger murders.

In fact I think I've already gone into this on the Bulger thread.
 
 
grant
14:05 / 09.07.01
I think you're off by about 80 years, Kooks. The idea of innocent childhood I think was gaining currency at about the time people decided fairies were dainty creatures with wings rather than members of an inhuman tribe who stole children. (And just before people turned Santa Claus into an elf instead of the patron of thieves and pawnbrokers look it up, it's true.)

I can't help but think it's all tied up with Wordsworth's reflections on his carefree youth in that damned, much-revised "Prelude." It could also have been a reaction against the childhood horrors described by Dickens.
Probably tied in with class differences: images of children as necessary, valued workers on the farm or as divine carriers of the family name for the ruling classes.
And then there's the whole "and the little children shall lead you" bit of Christianity. I have a feeling that was more-or-less latent and "metaphorical" until the mid-1800s, but I've got no hard proof for that.
 
 
Ganesh
17:47 / 09.07.01
I'm not sure whether it was pre or post-Victorian, but I'd agree that a sentimentalisation of children and childhood took place. Previously, children were seen as a family resource, a source of labour or income; I suspect that, the further down the socioeconomic scale one exists, the more likely the pre-Victorian 'working child' model is to persist.
 
 
pebble
06:17 / 10.07.01
Well, rewind a little - 'the enormity of their crime'? Isn't it comments like that which show how deep this concept runs? Why is it worse to kill a child than an adult?

Sorry - point taken. It was kind of mean't to be sarcastic, but didn't really work. Saying that, the enormity applies both to adults and children. Murder should be thought of as such.
 
 
Saveloy
08:47 / 10.07.01
I think there's a danger of mistaking the oft referred to tabloid media (read bogeyman) 'virtual' public for the real thing. Very rarely do the views and ideals of both completely coincide. No one that I know of, even those with children - especially those with children - thinks of kids in the 'ickle-wickle' way suggested so far. 3 year olds are selfish, mean little bastards, I can tell you that much. But it's all for the reasons that Jamieon gives, and therefore understandable.

We are free to organise our world and the way we think about it any way we choose. If we decide to make childhood a time of freedom from responsibility then bloody good, say I. Preferrable to shoving them up chimneys, (though don't think I haven't thought of doing that from time to time).

Just out of interest, how much experience do the previous posters to this thread have of children, or parenthood? Apart from having all been children, of course.
 
 
Cat Chant
10:05 / 10.07.01
quote:Originally posted by Saveloy:
If we decide to make childhood a time of freedom from responsibility then bloody good, say I. Preferrable to shoving them up chimneys, (though don't think I haven't thought of doing that from time to time).

Yeah - I thought that part of the growth of the "childhood innocence" meme (I *still* don't know what that bloody word means, can we stick it in the Barbelexicon please?) was actually through the Dickens stuff - a politically expedient way of justifying putting an end to child labour. (Not that I'm horribly cynical or anything, but ending child labour and incrementally increasing the age of compulsory schooling does, of course, help keep the unemployment figures down as well.)

And I have almost no experience of children. Thank the Lord.
 
 
Jamieon
11:05 / 10.07.01
quote: I think there's a danger of mistaking the oft referred to tabloid media (read bogeyman) 'virtual' public for the real thing.

Whilst I sympathize with what your saying, Sav, I've got to ask: When was the last time you had a night out with the proles?

I frequently bounce between London - and a highly intelligent, liberal circle of friends - and the small village that I hail from, where attitudes aren't as open, fluid or politically correct. It's an eye opener. Like most villages, everyone there knows everyone else; and it wouldn't be too much of a generalisation to say that most people read the Sun/Mirror/Mail and most people would like to see the Bulger Murderers shot. There is definitely a positive correlation between the "opinions" expressed by the tabloid press and their readers' outlook on world affairs.

Last week I had a long chat with a close friend who's fully entrenched in village life. She works in the local launderette, and is constantly shocked/horrified by the way that most of her colleagues/friends parrot the crap they read in the papers. She's had long, long arguments with them about Asylum Seekers, Clause 28 and the Bulger Murderers.

I applaud the attempt to negotiate equality on every scale, but that doesn't exclude the fact that some groups share opinions/prejudices that, in this day and age, need to be dispensed with. And it doesn't exclude the fact that there is a large body of "literature" that reinforces these views, and, in many respects, helps to generate them.

Sure, I used hyperbole to describe the popular conception of children, but there's no getting away from the fact that there would less confusion surrounding incidents like the Bulger Murder if the general public redefined their notions of innocence.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
11:47 / 10.07.01
quote:Originally posted by Jamieon:
but there's no getting away from the fact that there would less confusion surrounding incidents like the Bulger Murder if the general public redefined their notions of innocence.
I have a feeling that getting a new definition of innocence, in a childhood sense, anyway, accepted widely would be incredibly different. In a way, childhood, or memories of childhood may well act as some kind of "perfect" state - that is, it's a place that's supposedly free of all the worries of the adult world. Whether or not this is actually the experience of the person growing up, perhaps the remove at which they're viewing their childhood has a lot to do with their conception of how "innocent" the time was - it's a form of fictionalising? Maybe people value this escapism? I don't know.

Kids may not be as innocent as adults think, but as long as adults believe or misremember them to be, there'll continue to be this problem.

Is this valid? Thoughts?
 
 
Saveloy
14:47 / 10.07.01
Deva:
"but ending child labour and incrementally increasing the age of compulsory schooling does, of course, help keep the unemployment figures down as well."

In Britain there was one particular MP (or Lord, can't even remember his bloody name) responsible for highlighting the appalling working conditions of the children working up chimneys. He made a huge fuss about it at a time when child labour was extremely useful to the economy (and therefore the govt) and still succeeded in getting changes made.

Personally I'm much in favour of reducing adult labour too, by removing the need for it. I'm with Valerie Solanes on that one. Instead of insisting on making life as shit for kids as it is for adults, I say lets make life as good for adults as it is (supposed to be) for kids.


Jamieon:
" ...and it wouldn't be too much of a generalisation to say that most people read the Sun/Mirror/Mail and most people would like to see the Bulger Murderers shot. There is definitely a positive correlation between the "opinions" expressed by the tabloid press and their readers' outlook on world affairs."

Fair enough, I'm not suggesting that everyone's reading the Sun and tut-tutting at their oversimplification and that. It's a matter of degree. Maybe I'm mixing with the wrong sort of proles, but the non-middle class, non-liberal guys I call friends, and the ones I work with or have lived with are nowhere near as rabid or as monomaniacal as the media they read and most of them are well aware that much of it is bollocks. The people who are - that is, taxi drivers - are like tiny Fleet Street editors themselves, in that they tailor their 'opinions' to suit whatever they think their customer wants to hear, and so they may be discounted as opinions. There is a large group of such people without any true opinions, granted.

Btw, I think the broadsheets are just as guilty of creating and believing in a virtual public as the tabloids, more so in fact - just look at Charlotte Raven (who admitted as much herself some time last year when she was shocked to discover that a survey of young proles revealed they weren't as au fait with the members of Steps and Big Brother as she had imagined them to be).

"Sure, I used hyperbole to describe the popular conception of children, but there's no getting away from the fact that there would be less confusion surrounding incidents like the Bulger Murder if the general public redefined their notions of innocence."

Hmmm, I think some modification might be useful, but I still don't think people are as naive about kids as has been suggested. I think Kooky's assertion is a little out of date. Can someone be more specific about the actual problems that this alleged reality gap is causing anyway? Is it just the gap itself, the 'lie' that y'all object to? Jamieon, you refer to a "confusion" above, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that.

While I'm here, I think it's worth pointing out that there is one very simple reason we - I say we, not you lot obviously [joke] - are particularly horrified by child murder and child abuse, and that is that they are physically smaller and weaker than adults and therefore less able to defend themselves. And, as has been pointed out, less aware of the need to. There's only so much you can stuff into a kids brain in a given space of time.
 
 
Jamieon
20:07 / 10.07.01
The confusion?

Oh, I don't know, the fact that so many people find it impossible to understand how a child could do such a thing. The idea that, based on the assumption that children are inherently innocent and more cuddly, they could never harm another human being unless they're, y'know...."born evil".

Yeah, we've all got unintellectual, illiberal mates/colleagues etc - my aforementioned "close friend" is one example - but I'm not talking about your friends or your colleagues, I'm talking about the guys and gals propping up the bar at the 'Rose and Crown'; the people who never leave the village, let alone go to London; the people that would discriminate against you because you had long hair, or flares, or wore black; the people that think homosexuality is "unnatural"; that asylum seekers are all bludgers and should "go back where they came from" (out of interest, did anyone see that article on that new youth show on E4, where a bunch of young people were interviewed about refugees, and, almost unanimously, agreed that they were a rum bunch, out to scab off the rest of us?); the people who wept tears of blood when they heard about the tragic, untimely death of the Queen of Hearts...

The question is, Sav, where do you think people get these ideas from? Many people wouldn't even have an opinion about asylum seekers, clause 28 et al, if, before work, they hadn't consumed their daily dose of Gary Bushell along with their eggs and bacon.

I'm prepared to meet you halfway here, and venture that (shock! horror!) people do not simply mindlessly consume - the tabloids do not inject ideas directly into peoples minds - and that everyone interacts at some level with the texts they engage with; but the fact that these "newspapers" help perpetuate and reinforce these ideas... its enough.

So many people, living in our channel surfing culture where there's so much choice, only subject themselves to the kind of crap that reinforces their firmly entrenched, and prejudicial, opinions/worldview. Take a look at the popular Hollywood films that serve only to reassure - where everything that occurs corresponds to a preordained plan, and unfolds exactly the way it "should".
 
 
Saveloy
07:38 / 11.07.01
Okay, very well argued, so I'll meet you 3-quarters way. I'm holding that last quarter back because of my wariness of speaking in such general terms about 'the proles'.
 
 
Jamieon
07:38 / 11.07.01
Yeah, I can't stand generalisation either.

It's so hard to get into one of these conversations without generalising though.

The "Proles" thing? That was kind of a joke.
 
 
theroadtorio
13:45 / 09.09.03
Well, a lot of what gets into the papers, onto TV, etc, does have some validity. I mean, it's not solely propagated in the media to 'highlight' (create) an otherwise non-existent problem. Journalists are trying to highlight problems, to help solve them. The degree to which the actual size of the problem is exaggerated, depends on the validity of the reporting, and the type of media it's reported in. And that's not to say that tabloids or even BBC News 24 doesn't 'make a big deal over nothing' from time to time. If it's a bad news day, a kitten getting stuck up a tree can make the headlines.

Personally, I don't think there's such a 'rigid' perception of an idealistic 'childhood innocence' as has been suggested. My own childhood was not such a sweet walk in the park. I guess learning and 'growing up' has made me a shrewd judge of the true use of a pampered childhood, and certainly put me off having any of my own, lest I should delude them in the same way that I experienced in my younger years. Discovering that Santa Claus DIDN'T EXIST, for example, was a real kick in the teeth. A big old milkshake of grown-up juice and smelly water.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
04:04 / 11.09.03
I'm not even sure that the invention of childhood as a realm of innocence that has to be protected -- mostly from sin, or sexuality -- could even be said to have been invented in the 19th century. Look at the Salem witch-hunts -- adolescent girls as victims, thus *particularly* vulnerable to the unknown/sexuality/occult because they're simultaneously 'innocent' children but also in a kind of liminal moment between adulthood and childhood. Surely a kind of innocence/childhood motif runs through all of that stuff? (Or maybe it's just Arthur Miller projecting his 20th C concerns into The Crucible.)

For me, the issue of childhood innocence and its use in all sorts of different contexts is all wrapped up in the way sexualities work. Children are the symbols of reproduction of culture: they have to be protected in order to reproduce the social order. Children are supposed to be asexual and a-moral, both in the sense of not knowing the difference between right and wrong, and being entirely 'innocent' of sin.

Ironically that trope coexists with another that wants to commodify everything and treats everyone, including children, as consumers of sexuality-as-commodity. This is everywhere, and completely 'acceptable' (child models, Britney Spears etc.) So you have a kind of feedback-loop (this is not an original theory, in fact I think I have Deva to thank for it) where people's hysteria about child porn and the Bulgers and so on is a sublimated response to the increased exploitation of children as consumers -- and producers -- of sexuality.
 
  
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