[lit-ideas] Re: The Order of Aurality (ratification of fiction?)
- From: John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:24:00 -0400
Anyone who thinks that children are not autonomous agents has never had to
care for a two-year old.
John
On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 6:41 PM, Andy <mimi.erva@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I think an argument can be made that children under aren't liars, they
> simply can't tell reality from non-reality. I think abstract reasoning
> kicks in about at about age seven or so. Does a child that young even know
> colors? (I remember when my niece was two my sister in law said I'm dying,
> it's so hot in here, and my niece said, mommy please don't die. The
> comment scared her.) Children are often treated as little adults when
> they're more like puppies or kittens than adults. But then we often
> treat dogs and cats like fellow adults too. The analogy only works up to a
> point obviously. It merely speaks to how different human children are from
> human adults. Yet we give children to the virtually or
> actually dispossessed to raise...
>
> Andy
>
>
> *From:* John Wager <jwager@xxxxxxxxxx>
> *To:* lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> *Sent:* Saturday, March 10, 2012 9:12 PM
> *Subject:* [lit-ideas] Re: The Order of Aurality (ratification of
> fiction?)
>
> Young children (about 2 or so) may be trusting in "the veracity of
> others," but they are also great liars! Both of my 2 year old grandchildren
> (one boy, one girl) have already learned that they can lie to my face and
> defend that lie and make up stuff to support that lie, and they have at
> least some hope that I will "bite" and accept what they say. "Is that your
> cookie or your sister's?" "It's mine!"
> . . . ."No, it's mine! She ate hers!" Me: "Hers was red; yours was blue;
> you're eating the red one." "No it's not; it's blue!" So why would anybody
> call children gullible? Because they think WE are so gullible?
>
> Eric Yost wrote:
> > . . .
> > Thomas Reid, a leading member of the Scottish Enlightenment, argued that
> an original principle implanted in us: "is a
> > disposition to confide in the veracity of others and to believe what
> they tell us.It is unlimited in children" . . . .
> > Similarly, Wittgenstein claimed that: "A child learns there are reliable
> and unreliable informants much later than it learns the facts which are
> told it" (1969, sec. 143). The same emphasis on early credulity and the
> absence of doubt can be found among contemporary psychologists and
> biologists. Dan Gilbert, for example, proposes that: "Children are
> especially credulous, especially gullible, especially prone toward
> acceptance and belief" (p.111) and Richard Dawkins calls attention to the
> alleged biological advantages of such credulity
> >
>
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>
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
jlm@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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